


I Do My Best to Understand, Dear, But You Still Mystify

by MellytheHun



Series: Cruel to Be Kind [2]
Category: Hey Arnold!
Genre: Angst, Appropriate Trigger Warnings Will Always Be In The Beginning Notes, Awkward Teenage Groping, Coming of Age, Drama, Dysfunctional Family, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Family Drama, Fluff, Friendship, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Jealousy, Middle School, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pining, Poetry, Puberty, Romance, Slice of Life, That's What The Underage Warning Is For, boys who are bad at feelings, problematic characters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-26
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2018-07-10 10:31:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 7
Words: 27,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6980704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MellytheHun/pseuds/MellytheHun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Puberty takes a physical and hormonal toll on our favorite Hillwood hero while he tries desperately to take control of his life, afraid that he is not the one holding the reigns.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Seventh grade was a whole new building, with a whole lot of new people from elementary schools all across the area. Arnold had most of his classes with unfamiliar faces – thankfully, though, he wasn’t entirely alone. He got to share English with Sid and Curly. He shared Math with Rhonda, Science with Gerald and Stinky, History with Sheena and Nadine and he had lunch with Gerald, Harold, Patty and a handful of others. 

Seventh grade was the first time they’d get a chance to start a second language course – most of his classmates signed up for Spanish and he figured that was probably the most sensible thing to do, but he chose French instead. When signing up for the class, he thought to himself it might be the only class he’d get to share with Helga. She’d probably be really good at it too; she seemed to be good at everything she picked up. 

She didn’t take French, though. She and Phoebe signed up for Japanese. He hadn’t even heard that was an option. Gerald had opted for Italian, so he wasn’t going to be there either. 

He was sort of unnerved when he went to French for the first time and the only recognizable faces were those of Rhonda, Curly, Lila and Peapod Kid. He took a seat somewhere near the door and on that first day, someone in pink walked in and he twisted in his seat to catch her – but it was an unfamiliar brown-haired girl. Helga didn’t even wear pink anymore. He wished his brain would stop searching for her in his periphery. 

During his lunch period, he could see out the big windows into the yard that extended from the gym. Apparently his lunch period was the same as Helga’s gym class. He was adamant that he and Gerald take a table by the window everyday. Gerald never seemed to catch onto why. 

She wore her hair in low pigtails and they’d bounce along her shoulder blades while she ran the track. There was something that bounced against her chest too – some clunky necklace she must have just never taken off, because he could have sworn it was the same shape and general size of the one she wore beneath the collar of her shirt in elementary school.

Her legs seemed to have gotten very long over the summer – or maybe they were rapidly growing while she threw them over hurtles and stretched on the grass to cool down. Her figure, while lithe, was beginning to curve in ways that distracted Arnold from friendly conversation. 

Sometimes, when he’d see her go back into the gymnasium with her classmates, he’d wonder to himself what the girl’s locker room looked like – what she looked like in it. His brain would spit out images of her hands, soft as he remembered them, unlacing her running shoes, images of her long legs stepping out of her hand-me-down shorts and how they would pool around her feet. Quick flashes of images he couldn’t catch as they flew by – her bare back shimmering with a fine coat of sweat, her shirt being pulled up and over her head, her tight waist exposed, the way her back would arch with the way she might take off her sports bra, what that gold chain would look like against her naked, shiny collarbone, how the chain might fall down her chest, between her breasts... 

When his thoughts strayed like that, he’d pull his own earlobe hard enough to hurt. 

More and more changes – to everyone, to his environment, to his body and his mind that he had no control over. And, frankly, he wasn’t a fan of most of them. 

In fact, the only change he did like was his growth spurt. Helga was still taller than him – most people, still. But he passed five feet and that was an accomplishment all the same. Between the desperate and constant need for deodorant, the fluctuations between oily and dry skin, his fast growing hair and loss of control over blood flow direction in his body, he’d take what wins he could and appreciate them for what they were.

Somewhere between November and January, Helga pierced her ears and Brainy started wearing nasal cannulas attached to a portable oxygen tank he had a special pocket for in his backpack. 

Arnold passed Helga and Brainy together a bunch of times in the hall throughout the day – it was in January Helga started holding Brainy’s books for him. Phoebe seemed to want to help too, when she was with them. 

But most of the time, it seemed Helga and Brainy were the new duo. Phoebe had all advanced placement classes, so she shared nothing but lunch and foreign language with Helga. Their friendship appeared as strong as ever, though. Few things could come between those girls.

It was a cold February morning when he’d seen Helga out by the school entrance – alone. Rare as that was to see, he seized the opportunity to talk to her. She didn’t seem particularly interested in speaking to him, barely even looked at him when he approached, but he didn’t let that discourage him. He kept his hands tucked in his corduroy pant pockets and rubbed her ribbon between his fingers; it gave him courage some days.

“H-Hey, Helga.”

“Whadda _you_ want?”

He sighed and gave a weak smile, “just – just to talk to you. Uhm. We haven’t spoken in a while.”

“Yeah, weird how we never get to talk during all those times I’m trying to stay as far away from you as physically possible.”

He rubbed at his forehead with the back of his hand, frowning nervously at the ground. He tried to remember if talking to Helga had always been this difficult, but it felt like all his memories of her were fuzzy or distorted. He’d been away from her too long. He tried to stay focused.

“Can, I, uh, ask about Brainy?”

That question seemed to pique her interest. She cocked a brow at him, assessing him; this was the closest he’d been to her in what felt like a year. Maybe more. Her face had changed a little. Her cheekbones were more pronounced, her hair was longer and thicker than he remembered and when he paid attention the next time she opened her mouth, he realized she had braces. 

_When did she get braces?_

“Brainy’s got cystic fibrosis,” Helga answered, crossing her arms, “It means his lungs make a ton of mucus and clog up all his junk. It’s why he was always wheezing.”

Arnold frowned seriously at her.

That’s not how he had meant it – what he meant by his question was what was her _deal_ with Brainy. He wanted to know if they were dating or something, but somehow, after her answer, it seemed inappropriate to ask. 

Why should he care anyway? If Brainy and Helga were dating it wasn’t his business. And after all these months of silence, is that really all he could think of? He told himself he was disappointed in his own maladaptive sense of ownership or entitlement to that information, but all he really felt was disappointed that she’d misunderstood him.

“He’s always had it?”

“Yeah, it’s genetic,” Helga replied, “Makes him high-risk for the flu and pneumonia, and having C.F only makes everything worse. He can hardly breathe as it is, so he’s gotta be real careful. Doc told him his life expectancy is like twenty-eight or something.”

Arnold froze up, right hand curling tightly in his pocket around his strip of satin. 

“S-seriously? Is there anything anyone can do?”

“He’s on a list for a lung transplant,” Helga shrugged, looking down at her worn boots, “Has been for like four years. Only thing working in his favor is that he’s young and his dad’s got good insurance. But if anyone has like, twenty thousand bucks sitting around and feels like donating to a gross, phlegmy cause, Brainy’s is one to consider.”

Nodding, Arnold shifted on his feet and stared at the two ribbons keeping her low pigtails in place. The tip of her nose was very pink and her cheeks were red – he was about to offer his scarf to her, when she interrupted him.

“How’s life been with the ‘rents around?”

He was a little caught off-guard. She wasn’t looking at him, but her tone of voice betrayed her act of stoicism. He smiled, his stomach warming up at the idea that she still cared about him. She still cared.

“Really amazing at best and interesting at worst,” Arnold chuckled, “My dad is sorta clumsy and Grandpa’s been basically tailing him from room to room with a toolbox in fear that he’ll touch something and my mom’s always got a medical kit somewhere in her purse. They’re both really smart – it’s nice to finally have two level-headed people to help me with my homework. It was a lot to get used to when I first got back, but they found their slots pretty quickly.”

“Good to hear, Football Head,” Helga told him.

He grinned and blushed; it had been a long time since she’d called him that. It was so rewarding to have her attention again, so calming, like a salve on a burn he didn’t realize had gone untended to. 

“How, uh… how has home been for you?” Arnold asked cautiously.

Helga didn’t look at him still; she was watching the bus stop, maybe waiting for Phoebe or Brainy. Or maybe she had new friends – friends he wouldn’t know about because he didn’t share any school time with her anymore. 

Imagining Helga making new friends made him sad. He had always known her as a private person and her friendship always so hard earned. He didn’t like the feeling of being so removed from her life that he didn’t know who she spent time with anymore. Who mattered to her anymore.

“His royal highness has added selling personal computers and cellphones to his repertoire and will probably need to attach new arms to his torso for how much patting of his own back he likes getting done in a day. Olga is backpacking through Europe and sending nauseating emails about the Peace Gardens she’s meditating in, the posh cocktail parties she’s the darling of and all the handsome Italian and French suitors she’s turning away so she can focus on her volunteer work.”

Arnold smirked, not having known Olga well, but knowing how much her sunny disposition put Helga off. 

He tried to imagine Helga in Olga’s situation – all dressed up, surrounded by handsome young men, meditating in gardens; it was a little absurd. He couldn’t picture it without picturing Helga biting off the heads of any guy that got too friendly with her, ripping off glittering jewelry, throwing heeled shoes at anyone who tried to stop her from marching out…

He could kind of see her in a garden, though. Not meditating, maybe, but writing. He could picture her, surrounded by pastels and shimmering sunlight, pink notebook out and being scribbled in. 

That scenario made a lot more sense to him. Had some place in reality, anyway. Maybe she’d even like that.

For a split second, he wondered if his parents knew a place like that – a place colorful and peaceful that Helga would like. A place he could take her to.

He bit the inside of his cheek, trying not to examine whether or not that was just a random passing thought or a newfound desire. 

Still in good spirits, he asked, “and your mom? How’s she?”

“Miriam?”

“Uh… yeah,” Arnold hesitated.

Helga shrugged again, still not looking his way, “eh. Sedated.”

Arnold’s smile fell away entirely, but when he opened his mouth to ask her what she meant by that, she spotted Phoebe stepping down from the bus and took off in that direction. She wasn’t going to say anything to him, but he shouted after her, “it-it was nice talking to you, Helga!”

“If you say so!” she shouted back.

He rubbed at his neck nervously as she caught up with Phoebe and he could tell Phoebe was asking why Helga had been talking to him. Phoebe didn’t seem to hate him or anything, but she hadn’t seemed all that fond of him since San Lorenzo either. She seemed cautious; wary, maybe. 

After she had walked away, he was still able to smell Helga’s scent in the air. He hadn’t been so close to her in so long – he’d sort of forgotten what it was like. When he had a moment alone that day, he took out his ribbon and smelled it to see if it still carried her scent at all.

It didn’t. 

Helga was like sand through his grasp the rest of the year. Every time he came close to talking to her again, she’d find an out or she’d dodge him altogether. He couldn’t – or wouldn’t – approach her when she was with Brainy or Phoebe. He felt sort of… intimidated by them. The presence of either of them made him trip over his words and he’d wind up with his foot in his mouth somehow. 

He overheard talk of Helga going to a therapist, though. He was eavesdropping on a conversation between three girls a table away during lunch one day and heard one of them say they saw Helga in the waiting room of her own therapist’s office. The girls remarked on how strange it was that Helga Pataki would be seeing a therapist, but the one that apparently shared the same therapist with Helga told the other girls that it’s not something one exactly advertises. 

He wondered what Helga spoke about in therapy – if she ever spoke about him. He wondered if maybe Helga’s therapist advised her to stay away from him, maybe that’s why she went to such lengths to avoid him.

He couldn’t talk to her long enough to find out much of anything, though.

 _Maybe I’m just being paranoid_ , Arnold thought to himself.

June rolled around, the end of the school year was coming in hot and Arnold was washing his hands in the boy’s bathroom when he heard someone enter, coughing violently. He shook the water off his hands as he left the sinks to investigate and against the closed swinging door to the bathroom, Brainy was doubled over, coughing and hacking. Arnold frowned with worry and approached him slowly.

“Are you okay? Do you want me to get you water or something?”

“Inhaler,” Brainy wheezed, “left side pocket – inhaler.”

Arnold’s fingers flitted nervously over Brainy’s backpack until he found the little zipper pocket and gave Brainy his inhaler. Even with those tubes in his nose and that tank on his back, he sucked in two or three hits from his inhaler until he could properly clear his throat. His face was blotchy red and he looked sort of sweaty. He nodded at Arnold and thanked him in a soft, crackly voice that was deeper than he remembered it.

Arnold’s voice was still cracking – it had always been raspy, but puberty was being unfair to his vocal cords.

“It’s not a problem,” Arnold assured, “You’re sure you’re okay?”

Brainy nodded and then there was loud and sudden banging on the door behind him. Arnold was alarmed, but Brainy smiled knowingly.

“Brian! Are you in there? I’ve got your meds out here!”

It was Helga’s voice and Arnold hadn’t heard her tone so worried or maternal since she was thrusting him out of danger in the jungle. 

“Brian, so help me, if you don’t give me some sign you are alive, I will come storming in there and don’t think I won’t!”

Brainy leaned a little against the wall so he could crack open the door, so as not to reveal Arnold but still look at Helga. He gave Helga a placating smile and told her, “I’m okay. Just needed to… catch my breath.”

“You dingbat! You scared me half to death! You can’t just run out of class like that! You know how much trouble I’m in for running out after you? And how fast can you even be with a cruddy pair a’ lungs like yours!?”

Brainy shook his head fondly and answered in something closer to a whisper, “I don’t like when… you worry. Better when I… have privacy. I’m really… fine. I… promise.”

“Well, when I can’t be there to help, you make me worry more! You… you’re sure you’re okay?”

He nodded and adjusted his glasses before telling her, “I’ll be out… in a minute… okay? I didn’t… mean to… scare you.”

_Scare her? Helga Pataki doesn’t **get** scared._

  
Arnold was ready to laugh at the absurdity and maybe even at Brainy’s sense of self-importance regarding Helga, but then Arnold heard Helga sigh and in a voice he only ever heard her use with him, in their most private moments, she said to Brainy, “okay. It’s okay… as long as you’re okay… and you’re definitely okay?”

He nodded again and Helga seemed to accept that answer because she just sighed more and said, “alright, butthead. Go splash some cold water on your face. Orchestra needs you now more than ever.”

That comment made Brainy beam and Arnold felt a sour swirl in his stomach. Brainy told her “alright,” and then closed the door. He looked at Arnold in silence for a moment and then they both jumped a little when they heard her voice right against the door again.

“And don’t think I’m goin’ anywhere, pal! I’m waitin’ right out here and walkin’ you to class myself!”

Brainy’s chin fell to his chest, smiling and shaking his head in that fond, friendly way. He shrugged to Arnold, as if to say, ‘what can you do?’ 

Arnold didn’t mean to scowl, but his face sort of did it on its own. Brainy went to the sinks and ran some cold water, patting his face and only acknowledged Arnold again through the mirror a moment later. 

“Brainy… are you… do you…”

Arnold found himself unable to ask what he really wanted to, feeling wrong-footed. Brainy seemed to know anyway, though.

“I love her.”

The silence that fell between them was thick and heavy. Arnold’s face turned red, but Brainy seemed unaffected. He looked Arnold in the eyes, cool and collected.

“She saw me… when no one else …did. She kept… my secrets,” Brainy wheezed, “I’ve always… loved her.”

_“I’ve always loved you. Always.”_

Arnold swallowed roughly, but whatever smoldering lump of coal was in his throat didn’t go down right.

“I don’t even… really care if… I’m dying. This time… with her… it’s been… it’s been everything to me.”

Arnold’s brow furrowed and his eyes were wide, his heart thundering. 

His limbs were shouting at him to run or maybe fight? Fight an ill, dying kid because… what? Because he had feelings for Helga? Feelings Arnold already knew about – but to hear Brainy admit it and so casually… his brain was going offline. His mind and body weren’t aligned and neither were responding correctly to stimuli. 

“She makes me… a better person,” Brainy added.

He took a thoughtful pause and looked up and away, as if he were remembering something. Then he recited something that sounded memorized, but it still sounded genuine when he told Arnold, “she’s known sadness… and it has made her kind.”

Arnold nodded, feeling numb and bewildered and paralyzed to do anything else. Brainy nodded back to him and stuffed his inhaler into his jean pocket. He thanked Arnold for his help again and then went out the door. Arnold stood by the sinks for a few minutes, even after he heard Helga’s berating voice vanish around the corner of the hall. 

Brainy really _was_ sick. It’s not as if he hadn’t believed Helga when Helga told him so, but it was something different to see _how_ sick Brainy was with his own eyes. 

And Brainy _loved_ Helga. It’s not as if he hadn’t believed Curly when Curly told him so, but it was something different to hear it spoken aloud and so certainly. 

Maybe Brainy was totally consumed by his love for Helga – maybe he thought about telling her he loved her all the time, day in and day out and that’s why it came out so easily. Or maybe he already _had_ told Helga he loved her. 

Something about that possibility was terrifying and Arnold couldn’t tell why.

Helga was never the type to say “I love you too,” – she said she cared in her own ways; like, by staring down wild panthers, jumping in the way of bullets, reading poetry, helping reunite family…

Maybe she said it by holding onto important medications, threatening to storm the boy’s restroom, getting detention to give chase and ease her own worries…

He felt nauseous.

Something about his conversation with Brainy bothered him and bothered him _profoundly_. He just couldn’t tell what. 

Everything had been fine – everything had been fine before San Lorenzo. 

Maybe the plane flew through some sort of Twilight Zone wormhole on their way back and plopped him into a universe where any of this was supposed to make sense.

Arnold leaned over one of the basins and stared into the mirror, expression unrecognizable. 

_How did I screw this up?_ Arnold asked himself, _Why do I feel so rotten? Why am I so resentful?_

He bent his head down and missed his next class. 

That night was the first night he ever had such an explicit dream – and that it was about Helga troubled him deeply.

He didn’t remember much about the dream after waking up – everything was sticky and gradually turning cold in an unpleasant way. The random erections that plagued him day in and day out were manageable, but _that_ – a _dream_ like that – that had never happened before. 

She had been on his bed, dressed in something loose and short and pink, her golden hair seeming to fall everywhere; she had climbed on top of him, kissed him senseless and then moved down his body.

Arnold shook his head like he could shake the images loose from his brain and they’d fall out from his ears. Dragging his pajama pants off, he gave them look of mild disgust. 

He didn’t have any good pictures in mind to go off of anyway; some of his friends talked about porn they’d claimed to watch (though Arnold doubted them sometimes; especially Sid – he didn’t even have access to a computer at home), but he had never indulged. He saw easily how disproportionately women were fetishized and dehumanized in what he overheard and had described to him. 

He didn’t want to be a part of that – he wanted to think of himself as a decent young man. Above the primitive and unthinking desires of his body and certainly not party to disrespecting women in what he considered an act of intimacy and love. He took it very seriously, really. So, whatever his brain produced was probably a poorly constructed partially formed idea of what Helga and the act would look, sound or feel like.

He figured the dreams and shame would pass, maybe that dream was a one-off anyway and would never happen again – everyone went through stuff like that during puberty, regardless. He tried not to feel guilty about it, but the real shame he felt wasn’t about the dream itself; the shame was attached to who was _in_ his wet dream.

Those big blue eyes looking up at him, twinkling like diamonds, the feel of her hands moving over his thighs and waist reverently – he had said her name when he finished. He was on the edge of consciousness, a blurry idea of what her mouth would look like around him, able to feel his own hands twisting in his sheets and then his eyes had fluttered open as he came, mouth agape and just as he had been doing in his dream – he heard himself quietly moaning, “ _Helga_ …”

He glared at his digital clock.

Three-thirty in the morning and he had to tiptoe to the bathroom and wash off whatever evidence remained.

Every new change seemed to be worse than the one before it. The unpredictable erections were one thing, but now being unable to control actually… _ejaculating_? In his _sleep_? Why was his body so intent on betraying him?

He groaned, crossed his arms over the bathroom sink and he laid his forehead across them. 

He could still recall a blurry movement of her body over his; it gave him pleasant chills and a fresh wave of shame. He looked down between his legs where he was half-hard again and glared at his body, muttering angrily, “ _stop_ it.”

The only thing that allowed him to fall back asleep that night was telling himself it was an anomaly – a one-off he’d never have to worry about again.

There was no way for him to know that was just the first of countless dreams of its nature.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, there's a fairly serious fight in this chapter.   
> Bear in mind that I'm now depicting Arnold as a preteen boy with a lot of angst and repressed anger.   
> Helga goes hard, brevs.   
> Also! There's swing dancing! So have fun with that! :D

Their first year of being middle schoolers ended with a talent show – Gerald and Arnold, rather than perform, decided to volunteer as MC’s. 

Even being home three years now, there were parts of Arnold’s life his parents had yet to see – parts he was eager to share. Arnold’s parents had heard him sing with Pookie’s piano accompaniment and they’d listened to him play his harmonica and Grandpa Phil didn’t hesitate to tell them that Arnold was a “snazzy dancer.” 

Arnold really wanted to show his parents how sociable he was, how good a friend he was, that he was successful socially – that he was respected and generally liked among his classmates. Being an MC at the talent show was the perfect setting – his parents were in the front row and so were a bunch of the boarders. 

Both he and Gerald were well-liked and it showed when they walked out on stage; their hosting jokes were funny, they were doing so well and Arnold was having a fantastic time... until he saw Helga’s name on the roster. 

The energy rushed out of him like a speeding wind and he was suddenly limp and awkward where he had been ready and easy-going.

He was backstage, looking at the next talent he and Gerald would call up and it was Helga and Brainy. They were going to dance. 

“Man, you okay? You look like someone just kicked Abner.”

Arnold nodded, putting the roster down and turning away from it. Gerald picked it up and looked up at Arnold worriedly for a moment. Arnold hoped Gerald wouldn’t comment on it – her name, his reaction, she and Brainy’s act - on anything, really. Gerald never did know when to leave well enough alone, though.

“Swing? Really? How in the world are they gonna pull that off with a girl who refuses to do anything but lead and a boy that can’t breathe?”

“Believe you me, it wasn’t _my_ idea.”

Both Arnold and Gerald twisted around quickly to see Helga standing next to Brainy. He was in a collared shirt, suspenders, ironed pants and shiny white shoes with black tips. His hair had grown out a little and he had really started standing up straight the past couple months – the good posture gave him more height. His improved posture was probably due to Phoebe – Arnold had sometimes overheard her in the halls, telling him what damage he’d do to his back if he didn’t stand up straight with the weight of his oxygen tank.

While he adjusted his glasses, Helga knocked on his oxygen tank, which he leaned on the handle of like a cane. It was on wheels and had a pink bow tied around it. 

Arnold’s teeth ground.

“He’s not a bad partner, though,” Helga added conversationally, elbowing Brainy’s upper-arm, “Plus, he’s one of the only boys in the grade tall enough to dance swing, especially if I’m wearing heels.”

Looking down at her feet, Arnold blushed. She was wearing black, shiny, heeled Mary-Janes and her ankles looked really pretty. 

Arnold had never considered that part of the body beautiful before, but Helga had pretty ankles, whatever that meant. 

Her legs looked long and smooth and her knees were met by a loose-fitting black dress that was spotted with light pink polka dots. Her hair was up in some sort of retro, curled, pin-up girl style with a pink flower and she was even wearing sparkly earrings and glossy lipstick. 

She looked beautiful.

“Hey!” Gerald exclaimed gladly, “You got your braces off! When did that happen?”

Helga smiled in that cocky way she always did, but her teeth did look straighter and whiter and – _gosh, was her smile always so pretty?_

“Last week! Just needed them for a year. Thanks for noticing.”

“Ya look good, girl,” Gerald complimented easily.

Helga tucked a stray curl behind her ear, smiling almost sweetly and replied, “uh, thanks, Gerald.”

The lights on the stage flickered while the audience applauded for the act leaving the platform. Arnold stood there, frozen and numb until Gerald yanked on his arm and pulled him out onto the unlit floor.

“What happened back there? In a room with literally anyone, you and Brainy, since when did you become the awkward silent one? What’s gotten into you?”

“What’s gotten into _me_? Since when does Helga call you by your name?”

Gerald shrugged, “I dunno, but I like it.”

Arnold glared dangerously at him and Gerald looked at him with genuine concern.

“Man, I have no idea what’s up with you right now, but we got swingers to announce, so take the mic and keep ya chin up.”

The lights came on and Arnold didn’t really even hear himself banter with Gerald. He was only attached to time again once Helga and Brainy were out on the floor. _Jump, Jive An’ Wail_ started playing and their feet moved so fast, Arnold could hardly keep up with his eyes. They were doing some sort of alternative take on the collegiate shag, Brainy’s tank like a third partner in the dance.

The way they incorporated Brainy’s tank was cute and people cheered every time they’d twirl it or throw it over Brainy’s shoulder or between his legs. What was more distracting for Arnold was Helga – she was so in sync with Brainy, their legs moved in perfect time and for every air trick she performed with Brainy, he’d use her for two more. 

Like she used Brainy and moon-flipped him, but then he followed that up rapidly by throwing her in a basket-flip and then a rainbow-flip, all keeping in perfect, quick time. She was blushing – maybe embarrassed to be performing at all, but she was grinning too. 

Arnold knew her parents weren’t out there – they never came to anything and he hoped they regretted it forever.

Helga flew through the air, always confidently twirling and spinning back into place, holding Brainy’s hands or shoulders or tank. Arnold could see clearly on Brainy’s blushing, sweaty face how much he was enjoying himself – maybe this was something he always wanted to do or a side of himself he always wanted to show.

Whatever the case was, he was good at it and he and Helga moved with a fluidity Arnold couldn’t fathom. Her footwork was distracting and made it almost seem like she was gliding across the floor and when she’d land from a jump, her arms were posed so gracefully – it was different than seeing her be athletic. He briefly recalled learning that she took ballet classes during elementary school and he wondered if she learned grace there or if she always had it.

The idea of her in ballerina garb distracted him for a few long moments. More than that, every other air trick or flip, Arnold would get an eyeful of Helga’s frilly slip and a flash of her black panties. That song was about three minutes long and it was about three minutes of absolute, unadulterated torture. 

He was supposed to be angry at Helga after all she’s put him through, but all he wanted was her attention. 

He was supposed to feel glad for Helga and Brainy, but he was overwhelmingly resentful. 

He was supposed to feel good about having Helga off his back, but he was inappropriately possessive. 

He was supposed to be having a good time, but he felt cornered and trapped and like every insecurity and every uncensored thought he’d ever had about Helga was written across his forehead.

At some point, the pink flower flew out of her hair and in the knick of time, Brainy caught it, making everyone erupt with cheers and then they ended the song doing an impressive banana split. Helga let Brainy hold her posed like that for a while, her head upside-down to the audience, her arms around his shoulders and legs wrapped around his left and backside. 

By the end of it, they looked out of breath, but the auditorium was bellowing with applause and shouting and people were even standing up for them. Arnold saw who he could assume were Brainy’s parents in the front row holding a video camera, cheering and whistling. 

Arnold imagined they must have been so proud of Brainy. They probably thought he could never do something like that. Helga was probably the one to tell him he could do anything - be anything. She probably only signed up as his partner to prove to him he could do it. She was always the type of person to do that.

And he couldn’t imagine that it hurt any that Helga was a beautiful young lady, spending extra time outside of school with Brainy. His head started to hurt as he looked out at Brainy’s mom whistling with her fingers in her mouth and his father with an incredulous grin. By them was Phoebe and a few other girls Arnold didn’t recognize – they were all standing up and clapping, shouting.

While they caught their breaths on stage, Brainy offered Helga the pink flower that fell from her hair back to her and she smiled at him before sticking it back into her then loose curls. 

He swung her back onto her feet, they bowed and then Helga gestured at the tank, as if to credit some of the applause to it. Arnold distantly heard Gerald laugh somewhere behind him.

Brainy straightened the front of his suspenders and grinned at her – this must have been a dream come true for him. Then Helga leaned in and hugged him tightly.

Arnold 

saw 

_red_. 

He heard Gerald calling after him, but he couldn’t help it. He had to get out. He couldn’t breathe – he couldn’t _see_ right.

He walked out of the emergency exit backstage and tried to take deep breaths, but couldn’t manage it. 

_How could she hug him like that? A noogie here and there, a friendly punch to the arm or whatever, but she never initiates touches like that! She never touches someone like that! Anyone! Ever!_

Every time Arnold had ever tried to hug her, she pushed him away with disgust and yelled at him for getting so close. What had Brainy done that was so amazing? Get _sick_? Did she feel bad for him? Was that why she was doing all that she was doing?

_That’s a terrible thought to have, you’re being selfish_ , he told himself.

He loosened his tie until it came undone and took off his black suit jacket, tossing it onto the ground in frustration. 

Why was she so terrible to him and suddenly so kind to Brainy? What had he done to deserve this exile? 

A memory that seemed random to him at the time surfaced – a memory from lunch with Sid and another boy he didn’t much care for, Jacob and a couple others he couldn’t remember. Sid was talking about bad pick-up lines and laughing at most of them. He started assigning which ones he’d use on what girls they knew. He said, on Lila, he’d use, “hey, girl, did it hurt…? When you fell from Heaven, you Angel?”

The boys had laughed and Arnold can’t remember who at the table prompted it, but someone asked Sid what he’d say to Helga Pataki. He laughed and joked loudly, “I’d say, ‘oh, hey, girl, did it hurt…? When you broke through the crust of the Earth and ascended straight from the bowels of Hell?”

Everyone had laughed.

Even Arnold.

He wished he hadn’t, though.

One of the boys asked if Sid really thought Helga was the Devil and Sid had just smiled and replied, “my dad always says that where the Devil can’t succeed, he sends a woman!”

His heart had twisted – he had wanted to defend Helga, but he didn’t even know what to say. They all would have given him a hard time for it anyway, seeing as she regularly went out of her way to announce to everyone how much she hated him. 

He knew she didn’t deserve those comments, though. He knew that as he laughed and he knew that as he paced the ground and battled for air. He should’ve socked Sid for saying that – for likening Helga to something so awful. He should’ve socked himself for laughing and standing idly by while his friends passed judgment on her. They had no place to do so. He should have told them that Helga was a brave soul and the truest friend a person could ask for. To the Green Eyes, she was a goddess even.

“Ugh! Why do I even _care_? I shouldn’t even care! Helga’s _mean_ ,” Arnold chanted to himself, throwing his arms around, “She’s mean! She’s a bully! I don’t get it! She’s cold, she’s rude, she’s violent, she’s aggressive, she’s unkind and self-serving! She’s the worst of everything! Why am I so –“

In his pacing and his anger, he’d failed to hear the door open. Gerald, Helga and Brainy were standing there, watching him. He had no idea for how long they’d been there watching him, but he could tell by their faces that they’d heard enough. 

His shaking hands dropped from his hair and Helga’s glare turned his hot blood icy cold. 

She turned her back instantly and started marching off, and compelled by some unknown (and clearly misguided) force, he ran after her. He stage-whispered to her to stop, to please wait as Gerald went out onto the stage to announce the next act by himself. Brainy was lagging somewhere behind Arnold – he only knew because he could hear the wheels of his oxygen tank against the floor somewhere behind him.

“Helga, wait!”

She came to a halt and twirled around to face him. She looked frigid and distant and angrier than he’d ever seen her. 

“I’m the worst of _everything_!?” 

“Sshh!” Arnold hushed urgently, glancing around the backstage area.

“No, I will not _sshh_!” she bit, looking and sounding more hateful than hurt, “You think you’re so high and mighty, Shortman? You think you’re so infallible and perfect? You think you’re just the _height_ of altruism?” 

Arnold was worried – actually, more scared. Scared was the right word. He was scared.

She was still hot from her dance and the heat came off her in waves like Hellfire. Her sapphire eyes shimmered like licking flames. His heart was racing.

“No, but you do.”

Why had he said that?

_Oh my God, why did I just say that?_

Helga’s face turned an impressive shade of scarlet and Arnold could swear steam was about to come billowing out of her ears. Her fists curled up and before he knew what had happened, those same fists were holding him up by his collared shirt, a few inches off the ground. 

“Are you looking for a fight or just plain dumb?”

“I’m not dumb and I’d never find a fight with you, even if I did go looking.”

She cocked a brow, “oh yeah? What the heck makes you so sure of that?”

He only had a few seconds to decide what his answer was – normally, Arnold was more level-headed than all of this. Normally, Arnold would sigh and brush her off, tell himself that he wasn’t stooping to her level, that he was more mature, he was above this drama and stronger than whatever Helga incited. 

Arnold had gotten so good at stuffing down all of his unwanted and usually unwarranted emotional tsunamis, but in that moment, it felt like they were all coming up from deep inside him at once.

Arnold tilted his head a little, making an almost come-hither look at her when he answered, “you and I both know you’d never really hurt me.”

He had sort of hoped that would be a scare tactic and send her running, but it seemed to have the opposite effect. 

It was fuel to a fire. 

He shook, his confidence crumbling away as she scowled deeply at him and asked darkly, “you wanna bet?”

With a sharp thud, he was down on the ground, the wind knocked out of him and his tailbone aching. He opened his eyes, getting a head rush just trying to sit up on his elbows and then he felt her heel dig into his chest and push him back down to the floor. He blinked up at her, gasping as she applied more weight onto her foot. He heard his chest make a worrying creaking noise. 

“ _No one_ tells Helga G. Pataki what she will or will not do,” she growled, eyes apathetic slits, “Check your ego before you open your mouth next time, _Shortman_.”

She removed her foot and he gasped, rubbing at what would probably be an impressive bruise at the center of his chest. He felt her dress drape over him as she crouched over his middle. She propped her forearms on her knees, clearly unaware or uncaring that she was in a dress and giving him an awful lot to look at. 

He hated his preteen body more than he could describe.

“It’s hard to see the picture when you’re inside the frame,” Helga started, holding his gaze intensely, “So, maybe you’re right. Maybe I _am_ rude, mean, aggressive, self-serving – maybe I really _am_ the _worst_. But you know what I think?”

He didn’t answer, but that didn’t seem to matter. She leaned in further and said closer to his face, “I think you think you’re a nice boy, Arnold.”

His eyes flickered between hers, parts of his body telling him to throw her off, to fight her. Other parts telling him to pull her down and kiss her. Other parts telling him to touch her silky legs or her pretty ankles. Other parts told him to keep perfectly still for the sake of his life.

“And you’re not.”

His heart sank and his brows curved in. She nodded, seeing she’d hit her mark.

“You think you’re a nice boy. But you’re not. You’re not a nice boy, Arnold.”

She stood up, stepping over him and turning her back. She reached her arm back, flexing her hand as she called gently, “come on, Brian. Let’s get outta here.”

He walked past Arnold, glancing at him worriedly, hesitating shortly, but ultimately following Helga and leaving Arnold staring up at the ceiling, broken-hearted and horribly shaken. 

Only a few moments passed before Gerald found him and helped him up.

“What in the – what happened?! I was gone for like three minutes! What in the world happened!? Are you okay, man?”

Arnold held his swirling head in his hand, grimacing and glassy-eyed. He was grinding his teeth again; that had become a bad habit. His free hand dove into his pocket and he gripped hard at the ribbon there, trying to calm himself down. 

_She didn’t mean that, she didn’t mean that_ , he told himself.

It sounded like a desperate lie even in his own head.

“Arnold?” Gerald asked.

Arnold finally looked at him and said without hesitation, “I hate her.”

Gerald’s brows pulled in, clearly unnerved.

“I _hate_ her,” Arnold muttered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> awww, you don't mean that, Arnold!


	3. Chapter 3

“Helga – can we… slow down… please?”

Helga came to an immediate halt, turning around to face Brainy and make sure he was breathing alright. 

_He ruins everything_ , she thought bitterly of Arnold.

That whole night was supposed to be for and about Brainy – they had worked so hard on that choreography for so many weeks and his parents were so happy. They were waiting in the auditorium for them both to take them out for ice cream – they were probably anxious to see that Brainy was okay too. They had initial doubts about him wanting to dance in the talent show, but it was at Helga’s insistence that they conceded and put their faith in her.

She was so used to Brainy’s company by then, she would sometimes forget that he had a disability and she’d race ahead of him, or ask him too many questions in a row or even lose her patience with him when he took a long time getting a sentence out. She was still learning. No one had ever taught her how to be kind or gentle – she only knew how to be absent or violent and nothing in between.

She had no guidelines for how she wanted to treat Brainy except for the rules she followed in her head about Phoebe. Phoebe could keep up with her fast pace, though – Phoebe didn’t lose her breath halfway up a flight of stairs, Phoebe didn’t cough for worryingly long periods of time. Phoebe was better equipped than anyone for everything. 

Brainy, though – Brainy drew a short stick somewhere along the genetic line and she needed a whole new set of rules about how to treat him in particular. She never meant to be insensitive – rather, she was trying her hardest to be present for him. He’d always forgive her when she’d say or do something unthinking, but she hated that she still put him in situations where he had to forgive her at all.

Her hands floated nervously near the front of his shoulders, looking like she wanted to help, but unsure how to. He smiled patiently at her, took her hands in his and rested them on his shoulders. 

“I’m fine… you’re just… fast and… that dance – it took… it took a lot out of me.”

He gave a weak cough and she frowned, putting the back of her hand against his forehead to check for fever. He was warm from their dancing, but fine otherwise. 

“I-I’m so sorry, Brian… I didn’t… he was just… I can’t –“

“You don’t have to… pretend for me,” he reminded her.

She swallowed a hot lump in her throat and shook her head, more curls falling loose.

“I haven’t even _done_ anything to him to deserve that – maybe I deserved that in elementary school, but why now? Why tonight? Why does he have to make me feel so worthless?”

“You never… never, ever deserved that, Helga,” Brainy told her, still holding one of her hands tightly and taking deeper breaths, “You’re not worthless. You’re priceless, Helga. You are… so wonderful. He’s either… very dumb… or very blind… but you are not worthless.”

She let her hand slide from his forehead to his flustered and freckled cheek. He was growing up to be sorta handsome, in his own geeky way. He was still lanky and she had recently made him swear to allow her to pick out his next pair of glasses, because she hated the style he wore. His eyes were a light grey, though and that was always calming to look into. 

His hair was very pale and so was his skin. He was a little taller than her if she took her heels off and even though his hands were callused, they were somehow handsome to her. She looked at his hand in hers, or rather – hers in his. She noted how rough the calluses felt against her skin and she said, “you should shave down your calluses the next chance you get.”

Brainy knew when Helga was deflecting – he was never out to hurt her pride or force her to talk about something she didn’t want to and he knew it was hard for her to hear nice things about herself. He wanted to shower her in flattery, but he knew she would never appreciate that – it would just make her uncomfortable. 

Phoebe had once said to him that if he tried climbing over Helga’s walls, he’d get electrocuted at the top and if that didn’t stop him, there’d be a mote full of crocodiles waiting for him at the bottom. Phoebe told him that all there was to do with Helga was have patience. 

_“Helga knows the importance of words,” Phoebe had told him, “She will take what you say to heart – she doesn’t like to admit it, but she takes **everything** everyone says to heart. People say bad things about her, so she believes she is bad.”_

_Brainy had looked down at his oxygen tank and felt his shoulders slump in defeat. Phoebe had patted his shoulder in a friendly way and encouraged him by saying, “but you know, maybe if she eventually hears enough good things about herself, she’ll start to believe **those**.”_

_He had nodded to her and she had told him, “just have patience.”_

He tried to respect that, even though he wanted very much to comfort her, to insist and convince her of her worth.

He could only hope she believed him. 

“I don’t want… to file them down yet,” he told her, “…makes strumming my guitar… much easier.”

“Isn’t that what the pointy-finger-picky-things are for?”

His smile widened and he answered, “technically, yes. I find them… difficult to use, though.”

She sniffed, nodded and then took her hands back, shoving them into the pockets of her dress. She looked down at the concrete of the school steps and realized she’d made a dull cuff on her shoes somewhere between storming away from Arnold’s tirade about her and nearly breaking his sternum. 

She wiped the back of her hand across her forehead, looking halfway panicked and said, “I-I’ve never hurt him before. I swore to myself I never would. I’ve never _wanted_ to. I didn’t even want to _now_ … I’ve _never_ wanted to hurt him.”

“Why did you?” Brainy asked curiously, blamelessly.

Helga shrugged, tossed her head back and made some sort of annoyed groan. 

“I – I just couldn’t let him think he _controls_ me. I can’t believe he’d try to blackmail me like that… I don’t like feeling helpless – I don’t like that he _wanted_ me to feel helpless…”

She seemed lost in thought for a few beats, then wondered aloud, as if she were alone, “what if… what if he becomes someone different?” 

She looked at Brainy fearfully, “what if he becomes someone… someone I’m not… that I don’t…”

“Love,” was a difficult word for Helga to say out loud for an audience and Brainy understood. He always understood. He nodded to tell her she didn’t have to explain and she sighed with gratitude before grimacing again.

“If he has changed… or becomes… this ‘something else’… what will… you be?”

She took the pink flower out of her hair and admired it, despite the anxiety coiling in her veins like snakes. 

_I don’t know who I am if I don’t love him…_

That was too terrifying to admit out loud. She shook her head and answered,

“I don’t know.”

That was at least half-honest.

Brainy took a step closer to her, rolling his tank with him. He adjusted his cannulas a little and she chuckled at him. He smiled, glad that even if she thinks he looks silly, that he was able to lighten her heart a little.

“It’s scary… not knowing,” Brainy agreed, “but I think… most of life is… accepting that we don’t… know stuff. And maybe… we’ll never know that stuff.”

He looked up at the stars and felt her eyes traipse along his face; his heart thumped at her attention. He really thought he could be dreaming. Having those baby-blues looking at him – _him_ , after all those years of dying for her attention… it was unbelievable. It made him feel invincible. 

He would never understand Arnold – how Arnold could turn her away. How Arnold couldn’t see what he saw when he looked at Helga.

“We’re all gonna die… with questions that… will go unanswered,” Brainy told her, “Better to appreciate what… you do know, I think… and –“

“And never stop asking questions,” Helga finished for him, smirking.

Brainy looked to her again and nodded firmly. She took a deep breath and told him, “you’re right, Brian. You’re almost always right, actually. You and Phoebe really need to start dumbing yourselves down for me so I can feel on par.”

He laughed and coughed a little, shaking his head at her. He touched the wrist of the hand closest to him and thought to himself that her hands looked feminine and her arms, while getting stronger, were ladylike too. He wanted to say something cheesy about her blossoming like the flower in her hand, but he opted to tell her something else.

“You know… what I think?”

Helga tilted her head, encouraging him to continue.

“I think… you don’t believe… you’re a nice girl, Helga…”

She stiffened up, suddenly looking nervous. He wished she would accept this compliment from him – she was doing so well that evening. Phoebe complimented her dress and she had thanked Phoebe instead of brushing her off and Gerald had complimented her smile and she’d done well with that too. 

When Brainy first started spending time with Helga, he figured out fairly quickly that she was pretty bad at accepting compliments. Or really, any positive feedback about anything. She told him once that when people complimented her, she felt like a vending machine trying to accept a wrinkly dollar – they had both laughed, but he knew she was serious. 

That’s why it was important to him to say to her, “but you are, Helga. You’re a very… nice girl, Helga.”

She looked like a deer in headlights, then relaxed her body in a staged, practiced way that meant she was going to throw him off with a joke. She pushed his shoulder playfully and said, “oh yeah, I’m _real_ nice. Hi, I’m Helga, I like to dance, push people down, nearly crack their ribs and sometimes I stitch or practice my calligraphy! I’m a page right outta Lila Sawyer’s book!”

“You are infinite, Helga…”

She went wide-eyed for a stiff, almost frightened moment, then looked away from him and he didn’t try to force her to turn back to him. 

He didn’t know if she understood what he meant by that and he wasn’t sure he had anymore words to describe what it was he meant by that anyway. That admission was more a feeling than a solid idea he could explain. She was infinite to him – impossible to understand or grasp, buzzing with potential energy, constantly becoming and unbecoming beautiful and terrible things he loved in equal measure.

“I’m sorry if… I’m making you… uncomfortable. You are… so wonderful. I hope that… one day… you’ll get to see yourself… for the lovely… girl you really are.”

“Ice cream,” Helga stated.

Brainy quirked a brow at her and she turned to face him, smiling a plastic smile he really disliked, but knew no way of making sincere. 

“I believe we were promised ice cream!” Helga continued, “Let’s go catch up with your parents and Phoebe – Slausen’s awaits!”

She took his hand in hers and lead the way back around to the front of the school, navigating the crowds and pushing people out of her way to clear room for Brainy; he loved watching her bark orders on his behalf. She was a queen to him and watching her command that everyone who is obedient to her be obedient to him gave him a sort of power high. 

Eventually they were able to pool into Brainy’s dad’s car and get a big booth at Slausen’s. Brainy’s parents were so thrilled and talked about how they video taped the whole thing and couldn’t wait to show Brainy how good he was and how proud of him they were. Brainy’s mother had started calling Helga “sweetie,” some time ago and while Helga typically hated pet names like that, she really liked the maternal treatment. It sometimes took Phoebe elbowing her in the side, but she really did try to be polite and on her best behavior in front of Brainy’s parents. Phoebe vouching for Helga’s reliability and good-heartedness certainly didn’t hurt either.

Brainy and Phoebe were laughing boisterously while Helga made a valiant effort to tie a cherry stem into a knot with her tongue. Her face was a ridiculous contortion of frustration, concentration and silliness. She had her elbows propped up on the table, her hands in fists, beginning to look laughable in her fancy dress and hairstyle doing something so crude. 

Phoebe was laughing, wiping a tear from her eye and saying, “Helga, what in the world do you think leaning on the table like that is going to help?” when Brainy noticed her flower was gone.

His laughter died, though he tried to cover his alarm; however he tried, he succeeded because neither girls noticed his concern. Trying hard to not make an obvious dent in the atmosphere, Brainy wondered if it was his fault – if he had said something wrong. Or right. Maybe he said too much or too little. 

If he had ever asked, Helga would have told him it had nothing to do with him. As they had walked away from the back of the school, she had intentionally dropped it and left it to the wind. She wasn’t sure why. It just felt like the right thing to do at the time. 

That night was the first time Brainy had ever seen Helga without something pink in her hair. It was unnerving in a way all unfamiliar things were, but she was beautiful to him in every way and just as he loved seeing her wear her bow, he loved seeing her without it.

It took Helga seventeen minutes to manage to tie a knot with the cherry stem, but when she did, everyone applauded her as she bowed theatrically over the table. Even the waiter laughed.


	4. Chapter 4

Arnold stared at the fading bruise in the middle of his chest – he hoped it would be sort of shaped like Helga’s foot, like it would be silly to see in the mirror, maybe lighten the severity of what happened. It wasn’t a funny shape, though. It was just an ugly, green-to-purple bruise like any other.

Hating Helga Pataki in theory was great. Trying to hate her in reality? 

Much more difficult.

A couple days after the talent show (and hours of relentless pacing in his room), Arnold cooled down enough for regret to seep through his injured ego; he thought more rationally about the entire ordeal and more than anything, he wanted to apologize to her. 

He couldn’t seem to find her, though. 

Hating her, in practice, probably meant he shouldn’t have wanted or needed to apologize, but it just went against his nature. He wanted to find a way to make things right between them.

And if he couldn’t make things right between them, he wanted her to know he was genuinely sorry for how he had behaved.

There was a dim glow of hope in him already growing, though, that he and Helga would talk and somehow wind up hugging and being friends again. He tried not to let that fantasy come too close to the surface of his mind.

He tried finding her on the last day of school, but she was nowhere to be seen. He couldn’t even find Brainy or Phoebe. He thought that there was a possibility they all skipped the last day.

Few things in the universe were worthy of damaging Phoebe’s impeccable attendance record, but if Helga asked it of her, Arnold was positive Phoebe would. 

Hating Helga, in practice, probably meant he shouldn’t have wanted or needed to find her, but still, he went looking.

He called the Pataki household and was answered by Olga, who informed him cheerily that ‘baby sister is out,’ but she’d be ‘oh so pleased to take a message.’ He remembered leaving a message with Big Bob the summer before and decided not to leave one with Olga. There was no way of knowing if it would get to Helga anyway and if he left it up to messengers, Helga would never respond.

He had to do this himself.

He half-hoped Curly would pop out from behind a painting on the wall or something just to give him bizarrely accurate advice or insight, but Curly made no such appearances. 

Arnold eventually recruited Gerald’s help and the two of them split up over Hillwood. Gerald didn’t ask many questions and when Arnold first showed up at his door, looking shamefaced and sad, Gerald seemed more relieved than anything else. He had mumbled something about just being thankful that Arnold seemed back to himself.

From sun up to sun down, Gerald and Arnold searched Hillwood, Arnold running different forms of apologies in his head the entire time, but at the end of the day, they didn’t find her. 

They did, however, find Brainy.

He was at home, in his pajamas, rolling his tank behind him. He answered the door when Gerald and Arnold rang – there was still heat when Arnold looked at Brainy. There was still some misdirected, possessive anger he was projecting at Brainy, but Arnold tried to keep it under control. He hoped it didn’t show in his eyes.

“Oh… hi,” Brainy greeted.

“Hey, Brainy,” Gerald started, taking a step in front of Arnold, “We’re lookin’ for Helga. Can’t find her anywhere. We went to Phoebe’s house, but no one was home.”

“Phoebe went to… Mathletes camp,” Brainy answered, “I don’t know… where Helga is.”

“Yes, you do,” Arnold accused.

Gerald looked over his shoulder at Arnold, brow furrowed.

“Man, shut up,” Gerald whispered, brows curved in, “This isn’t an interrogation.”

Arnold crossed his arms over his bruised chest defensively, but said no more. Gerald turned back to Brainy and asked, “You’re sure you dunno where she’s at?”

Brainy glanced over either of his shoulders, then leaned into the doorway and told them cautiously, “Bob has been… drinking…”

The weight of the admission settled in the air like lead. Arnold’s arms loosened and his shoulders went slack. 

“He has been… temperamental, scary… and Helga hasn’t liked… being home.”

“Is she okay?” Arnold asked worriedly.

Brainy shrugged, looking from Gerald to Arnold, “you never… quite know with her. She says she is… fine, but… she doesn’t like when… people think something… is wrong with her.”

“And… you have _no_ idea where she might be?” Arnold inquired more politely.

Brainy ran a hand over his short, white-blonde hair and replied, “I really don’t. She does have… a cellphone now, though… if you want, I can… give you her number.”

Arnold nodded, pushing past Gerald to get closer to Brainy, “yeah – that’d be great, Brainy. Please. Thank you.”

When Brainy handed them a strip of paper with Helga’s number, Gerald had a little laugh over Brainy’s terrible handwriting. Arnold remembered Helga calling it ‘chicken scratch,’ in their science class and remembered the humiliation and anger of that day.

But then he thought of Helga, wandering the streets of Hillwood alone in the dim summer evening, maybe too disgusted with her family to go home. Maybe too scared to go home. 

That possibility hurt so much it was nearly too much to bear.

_810-275-9344_

Arnold wondered if his house phone would show up as anything, like The Sunset Arms, on a cellphone – a few kids at school had cellphones, but Arnold had declined getting one as a gift from his parents his past birthday. Once he was dialing Helga’s number, though, he decided he would save up some money and ask for some help to afford his own. He’d buy it from Big Bob’s store once he could.

It rang four times and Gerald, sweaty from having moved all over Hillwood all day, stood behind him in wait. 

_“Despite what I imagine were my best efforts, you’ve managed to reach Helga Pataki. Leave a message if you need to but make it short.”_

Then a beep came.

It took a second for Arnold to realize he was being recorded.

“Oh – uhm, oh, okay – hi, Helga… uhm, it’s Arnold.”

_Why am I being so awkward? This is just Helga Pataki. I just need to apologize. Stop being awkward!_

Arnold took a deep breath and continued, “I… I know you probably don’t want to talk to me, but I really, really need to talk to you.”

Looking down at the carpeted hallway floor, Arnold forgot he was under Gerald’s watchful eye. He muttered, “uhm, I really… there’s a lot that I… I just… it’d mean a lot… if you just… called me back. I’ve been looking for you everywhere…”

As soon as he said that, he wished he could take it back. It feels like too much to share, like it’s a raw confession he hadn’t even made to himself. His face flushed and he stammered out the number for the boarding house, reminded her that he “really, really” needed to talk to her and to “just please,” call him back and then he fumbled with the landline twice before managing to get it back onto its hook.

“Man, that girl has jumbled up your brain something good.”

Arnold jumped, having forgotten briefly that Gerald was there. He rolled his eyes and replied, “no, I’m just – she hasn’t – my brain is… I don’t know.”

“Yeah, you’re not sounding jumbled up at all,” Gerald joked.

“Oh, boys! You’re here!”

They both turned to see Arnold’s mother standing in the archway of the kitchen, smiling gladly. She was drying her hands with a hand towel and looked like she’d been busy or distracted.

“Are you staying for dinner? What have you two been up to all day?”

At the same time, in perfect harmony, Arnold answered, “nothing,” and Gerald answered, “looking for a girl.”

Arnold snapped his head to Gerald and Gerald shrugged, laughing a little. Stella smirked and invited them into the kitchen to eat. 

By the time they finished dinner and all the boarders had grilled the two of them on what they had been up to, where they had been and who exactly they’d been looking for (all answers were intercepted by Arnold, who was a terrible liar and probably just dug a deeper grave for himself while trying to save face), it was dark out. Arnold showered after Gerald left and wandered into the living room where his parents and grandparents all sat in secondhand armchairs and a new couch.

“Arnold, sweetheart, come here,” Stella encouraged, inviting him to sit between her and Miles on the couch.

He took the invitation, petting back his wet hair and sitting with a tired huff.

“Were you looking for Helga?” Miles asked.

Arnold blushed, didn’t answer and kept his hands firmly on his knees. Grandpa Phil laughed loudly and said, “oh, she’s a sneaky one! Slips through your fingers like a fish, but bites like a shark!”

“You know Helga?” Miles asked Phil with no small measure of surprise.

Phil nodded emphatically, “boy, do I know that firecracker. We’re talking about the same little girl, right? Blonde hair, one eyebrow, pink bow?”

“Yeah, we’re thinking of the same person,” Miles said, glancing between Arnold who wouldn’t look up at him and Phil’s eager face.

“You mean Eleanor?” Gertie interjected.

“What?” Phil asked.

“Is Eleanor coming to visit?”

“Eleanor – Eleanor is the one you said you had breakfast with, right, Gertie?” Stella asked, looking as if she was piecing together a puzzle.

Arnold’s head swiveled to his grandmother, “what? Wait – Grandma, how do you know Helga?”

“Eleanor’s been over here plenty of times!”

Arnold paled and Stella asked, “Helga is the girl that found us, right, Arnold?”

Arnold nodded and continued to look at his grandmother, hoping she’d have a lucid moment and explain how in the world she ever found herself spending time with Helga and why.

It looked like all of them were about to talk at once but before they could, Arnold shot up out of his seat, realization dawning on him.

There was one place he hadn’t checked.

“We – uhm, we need to revisit this, but I think I know where she is,” Arnold announced.

No one stopped him from tripping over himself to grab his cardigan, slipping on his shoes and running out of the boarding house – he could swear he even heard a few encouraging words and some laughter. 

The streetlights came on as he passed them, as if when he ran past them, he was lighting them himself and when he made it to the pier, the streetlight by the end of one familiar dock flickered on above his head.

She was alone.

She was sitting at the edge of the dock, shoes and socks next to her, headphones clasped over her ears and Arnold had never felt so socially intimidated.

He tried to rationalize with himself that there was no reason to fear Helga – he was there to make an apology and as unpredictable as Helga’s anger could be, he knew deep down she was a reasonable girl. She’d probably hear him out for his apology. 

Probably.

He still had to muster a lot of courage before approaching her, though.

He came to stand next to her and when she noticed his plaid pajama pants, she followed them up until she was looking into his eyes. She pulled her headphones down and off, then reached to her side to turn off her mp3 player. 

Some silence passed and then Arnold gestured to where his feet were planted and asked, “…this seat taken?”

They both blushed; he hadn’t meant to say that, it was just what came out. He hoped that if he aggressively ignored what he had said, she would too. And she did.

“Uhm – can I sit next to you?” 

“It’s a free country,” Helga mumbled back.

He slipped off his untied shoes and rolled up his pants so he could sit next to her and their feet could dangle in the water. The moon was mostly full and Arnold thought about inviting Helga back to the boarding house to stargaze from the rooftop, but thought better of that a moment later. 

He wasn’t her friend anymore. She had made that all too clear and if he was honest with himself, ever since the talent show, he hadn’t felt much like he deserved to be her friend anyway. He sighed and laced his hands together between his knees.

“I… need to apologize to you.”

“You don’t _need_ to do anything,” Helga muttered dispassionately, “But you sounded pretty pathetic in your voice message, so if ya gotta get it out of your system, go ahead.”

Arnold shook his head and remembered the airport, after San Lorenzo. He felt so helpless, so hopeless as she turned away and even when he knew chasing her would do nothing to stop her from getting in the car and driving off, he did anyway. Because it was all he could think to do. Sitting on the pier with her at that moment reminded him a lot of the airport. 

His eyes went hot like they did then too, but he didn’t cry. He didn’t at the airport and he wouldn’t on the dock. 

“I was out of line – at the talent show. What I said about you… none of that was true. It’s not… not how I really feel. And challenging you the way I did – that was really messed up of me. I don’t even know why I was so angry. I think I’ve just been… I’ve…”

He swallowed a hot lump in his throat and scratched the back of his neck nervously before finishing, “…I’ve… missed you.”

Helga scoffed and he shook his head again, unable to look at her or even her reflection in the water.

“I’m serious, Helga. Ever since the start of middle school – actually, before that – you’ve been… gone. You’ve just made yourself gone and… it’s been terrible. It’s terrible to know I hurt you and I can’t hate you even when I try. Yeah, you gave me a hard time growing up, but you’ve always been such a constant in my life. You’ve always been there and then, suddenly you weren’t… _aren’t_ … anymore…”

He felt Helga turn her head to face him, but he couldn’t bring himself to look at her. He felt too close to crying and he knew that if he met her big blue eyes, he’d crack under them like thin ice.

“I spent all day looking for you. I even had to recruit Gerald. We took five different buses, split up three times and covered every square inch of Hillwood trying to find you. We made a checklist to make sure we covered everywhere and everything as we went. We titled it the _Hunt for Helga of 2000_.”

Helga scoffed again, but it was softer than before and there was real humor there. It wasn’t cold or distant. He felt some tension bleed from his chest and he curled his toes in the water.

“I’m sorry, Helga,” Arnold apologized, “I’m just… really sorry.”

Arnold always felt better after apologizing to someone he’d hurt, but his apology to Helga was so candid, it made him feel lighter than he ever had. His eyes were still hot and he figured she was still capable of telling him she didn’t forgive him, that he might still cry, but he tried to hold it back. For more than the sake of his pride.

“You’re not wearing your hat.”

Arnold’s brow furrowed and he felt at the top of his head; he was, in fact, not wearing his hat. He wondered how he could’ve forgotten it, but he felt fine without it. His parents were waiting up for him at home – he didn’t really need that hat like he used to. He remembered hugging Helga, years before and thanking her for finding and returning his hat to him when he had lost it.

It pained him to know he couldn’t hug her now. Or maybe ever again.

“No, I’m not,” Arnold replied, letting his hand fall from his damp blonde hair back into his lap.

“It’s weird, seeing you without it.”

“It’s been weird seeing you in something other than pink dresses,” Arnold countered conversationally.

He chanced a sideways glance in her direction and saw her staring off into space, maybe looking across the water at something only she could see. 

She was wearing her bow around her neck, had it tied in the back and tight around the front, like a choker. 

Arnold swallowed roughly again, willing his body to not have a more-than-friendly reaction to that. He wasn’t sure why his body was reacting at all, but he had enough on his mind. He wasn’t about to start analyzing that.

“Are you… okay?”

Helga didn’t respond. She stared into that middle distance for a long few beats and then said, “you know something I really like?”

Arnold finally turned to look at her and she said, as if she were speaking to the open air and not to anyone in particular, “I like words that have no English equivalents. I keep a notebook full of them. I’ve been sitting out here all day, thinking of all those words I know and I figure that two of those words apply to me today.”

Arnold didn’t respond, afraid he might make a noise that would remind her that she hated him.

Or loved him.

He didn’t know anymore – everything was so turned upside-down, he just stayed as quiet as he could so he wouldn’t annoy her or sending her running.

“Boketto, which is Japanese for staring vacantly into a distance,” Helga continued, “And hiraeth. You ever heard of it?”

“No,” Arnold answered.

“Hiraeth is a Welsh noun,” Helga explained, “It’s a mostly untranslatable feeling, loosely described as homesickness for a home you can’t go back to or a place that never even existed. It’s a combination of sadness, yearning, nostalgia and wistfulness. It’s like a half-painful, half-hopeful longing for an empty or unknowable desire and it’s also grief over a past life or a lost place. In it’s definition, it’s described as the ‘ultimate signifier of a bond, which has ceased to exist.’”

Arnold’s shoulders went slack and his feet started to feel cold. 

_I don’t want you to feel that way_ , Arnold thought, but couldn’t say.

“That’s… been my day. Boketto and hiraeth.”

Arnold’s eyes strayed from Helga’s profile, down to her long legs, looking longer for how high-waisted her shorts were. She was wearing a grey tank top and it was fitted just enough to show the outline of that clunky gold necklace. He wanted to ask about it, but he knew it would break whatever atmosphere had built between them, so he didn’t.

“I…”

_I want to know if your dad has hurt you._

But Arnold wasn’t supposed to know about that. 

Arnold wasn’t supposed to know anything about Helga’s private life and if she found out that he’d gone to Brainy’s house and was vaguely threatening in Brainy’s general direction until he confessed something deeply personal about her, she’d be livid.

“Is there anything I can do?”

Helga met his eyes and he knew immediately that there was. 

He could take her hand in his.

He could kiss her.

He could wrap his arms around her.

He could crawl on top of her and make himself a new home for her.

And he could imagine it all; pulling his legs up onto the dock, straddling her and lowering her down, running his hands over her hair, over her neck and her ribbon and her small waist and long legs. He could imagine kissing her softly at first, tenderly and knowing again what it’s like to have her full lips pressed up against his and he could distract her. He could take her away from herself. He could be that for her.

He could just as easily imagine her winding her pitcher’s arm back and socking him across the jaw for trying, though. To make sure he wouldn’t do anything rash and unthinking, he stuffed his hands into his pajama pockets and his right hand held onto her ribbon. 

“No,” Helga lied, “But thanks, Football-Head.”

He smiled and kicked the water, “I don’t even wear my hair like that anymore.”

“Doesn’t matter what you do to your head, that nickname is a winner.”

Arnold rolled his eyes, but he was pleased. Having a back and forth with Helga was like coming home after a long time away. He appreciated it more than he could express. He was still sort of haunted, though…

“You… uhm,” Arnold began stiltedly, “…you didn’t mean all that you said back there, right? At the talent show?”

Helga pulled her legs up and flexed her feet to shake off the droplets of water clinging to her. After she’d put on her socks and started tying her shoes, she replied, “unlike some people, I say what I mean and I mean what I say. Always.”

_That’s a lie_ , Arnold thought angrily, blood draining from his face, _You **just** lied to me and it was obvious._

“But – what you said –“

“I stand by what I said,” Helga interrupted, drawing herself up and looking down at him, “You’ve always thought you were a nice boy. I used to think so too. But I don’t think you really are anymore. I think it’s an act.”

Arnold glared at her, that immediate fury that only Helga could ignite in him was ablaze yet again. He stood up, one of his pant legs rolling down and sticking unpleasantly to his calf.

“An _act_? _I’m_ putting on an act? Did _you_ seriously just say that to _me_? I can’t believe you’d – Helga, you’re… you’re – you’re being such a hypocrite! Your whole life has been a big lie! You lied to me for years –“

“Withholding the truth is not lying,” Helga defended, “Regardless of whatever right you think you have to my feelings, they’re not for public consumption. I never owed you to tell you how I felt.”

_Felt_. 

Past tense.

Arnold’s heart started pounding violently and he felt like he could be sick. 

Images of Brainy and her together flashed across his mind’s eye and he wanted to hate Helga, but couldn’t, so he’d try to hate Brainy because he needed to direct this rage somewhere. And Helga made him careless. Helga made him irrational, so he’d put his rage in a cannon and fire it at whoever stood closest to her.

“What about this tough-guy act?” Arnold nearly shouted, gesticulating toward her, “You’ve fooled everyone into thinking you’re unfriendly, that you’re just a bully –“ 

“I _am_ a bully,” Helga interjected, irritated, “I _bully_ people. It all sort of goes hand-in-hand; maybe you’ll understand when you’re older. And I _am_ unfriendly. I’m not in the business of making friends, Shortman. I don’t care if people dislike me. I _am_ an unfriendly bully and I’m even tougher than I show. _You_ should know that, though, shouldn’t you?”

“Stop talking to me like we haven’t known each other our entire lives!” Arnold barked, “ _Why_ do you hate me so much? What did I do?”

“I dunno, _Shortman_ ,” Helga sneered, “Maybe I don’t need to make a case for every emotion I feel. Maybe I don’t _owe_ you an explanation for the things I do or feel or say or think. Maybe I don’t _need_ a reason to dislike you. Maybe it’s because I’m just the _worst_.”

“I apologized!” Arnold cried, head twisting into a migraine, arms flying up defensively and eyes feeling hot again, “What do you want from me? I’m _sorry_! I didn’t mean those things I said!”

“Maybe you didn’t!” Helga yelled back at him, her arms spreading wide, “But you said them! And what did you expect tonight, huh? Did you come here to apologize because you thought you’d get an apology in return?”

Arnold’s mouth opened, but nothing came out. 

He was torn between being shocked and infuriated. 

Helga bent down to collect her headphones and mp3 player and when she straightened up again, she scowled at him and said, “that’s not kindness, that’s just another debt. You want me to be sorry that I said something I actually meant that wasn’t all that nice to hear. You want me to be sorry for throwing you around, but I’m not. I don’t want or need you to forgive me. Sometimes people sit alone on docks because they want to sit alone on a dock. Sometimes people stay silent because there’s really nothing they want to say.”

“How could you have nothing left to say to me?” Arnold asked quietly, breathless and disbelieving, “How could you have _nothing_ left to say? You said you lo –“

“ _Don’t_!” Helga roared, her eyes glassy and sharp as knives, “Take a hint – actually, take _any_ of the hints I’ve given you over the last three years and _leave me alone_!”

“I don’t believe you really want to be alone, Helga,” Arnold replied, loud but not as angry, “I don’t buy it.”

“That’s not for you to decide!” Helga responded, fury only seeming to pile upon itself, “What? You wanna fight? You want matching bruises for your face?”

“I’m not going to fight you, Helga,” Arnold warned, watching her advance and taking a step back, “I _won’t_.”

“What? You scared I can’t hold my own? Or have you completely forgotten literally everything about me?”

“I don’t want to hurt you, Helga!” Arnold finally yelled.

Helga inhaled sharply, loudly and replied venomously, “then _leave me alone_.”

She turned her back, but Arnold followed and challenged her, “tell me, Helga – tell me that your ‘anonymous’ poetry wasn’t about me. You don’t – you don’t want me to leave. Not really. I remember that poem – that last one in Mr. Simmons’ room. You don’t really want me to leave.”

Helga sighed long-sufferingly and turned around a little to face him.

“We are ordinarily so indifferent to people that when we have invested one of them with the possibility of giving us joy, or suffering, it seems as if he must belong to some other universe, he is imbued with poetry,” Helga recited in answer, then tacked on, “– but, you know, sometimes he’s just another thick-skulled jerk like every other guy that wants a cookie for being basically decent.”

Helga tucked her headphones onto her head, looking away from Arnold as she said, “stop trying to shape me into what you think you want. I’m not going to be the tragic backdrop to your shining generosity. You have no idea what I want and you have no idea who I am anymore.”

Grinding his teeth, Arnold fought the feeling of his stomach twisting up into a knot, but he couldn’t control it. He couldn’t control the heat behind his eyes, the throbbing pain in his head, the tension in his back and shoulders, the tight fists his hands curled into, the pounding of his heart. He fought off the disappointment, the rage, the sadness and the sense of loneliness but he couldn’t. He couldn’t control any of it. He couldn’t control her or how she made him feel.

“We’re strangers. And I’m not looking for any new friends. You wouldn’t want me as a friend anyway – I have it on good authority that I’m pretty friggin’ unbearable.” 

Arnold’s lips parted, ready to argue further, but Helga interrupted him and said, “also – stop pretending like this whole ‘forgive and forget,’ garbage is real. People don’t forgive and forget. People either overcome their anger and learn from the experience or they stupidly grant clemency and ‘forget,’ about it all and then fall into the same traps and holes the rest of their lives.”

“So, what? You’re just going to stay mad at me forever because staying mad will keep you from falling into a trap no one is setting?”

“I stay mad to protect myself,” Helga responded curtly, “I happen to have a sense of self-preservation – something you clearly lack.”

Arnold dragged a hand through his hair, mussing it in his frustration, “I spent all day looking for you just to apologize and to see that you were okay –“

“That must’ve been very hard for you,” Helga said drily.

Arnold glared at her.

How had this all gone downhill so quickly? How had he messed this up _again_? Why could he seem to do nothing but _fail_ her?

“…you didn’t forgive me.”

Helga cocked her hip to the side and quirked a brow.

“I apologized to you and you… didn’t say anything. You talked about my hat.”

“Good work, Sherlock.”

“Helga…” Arnold uttered like a curse, devoid of anything more to say.

“This was great, Shortman. Let’s not do it again.”

And just like that, she put her headphones on and walked away from him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have I mentioned that Helga is fuckin savage? lol she's feelin' strong right now, but soon she's gonna need Arnold's help in a big way. Hope you enjoyed the update!
> 
> "We are ordinarily so indifferent to people that when we have invested one of them with the possibility of giving us joy, or suffering, it seems as if he must belong to some other universe, he is imbued with poetry," is a quote by Marcel Proust .


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic has been kept alive through donations and if anyone can make any donation at all, please make it to paypal.me/loserchildhotpants. College and living is really expensive and I need a lot of help lately. Thank you to everyone that's donated towards this series and any of my other WIPs <3

 The summer going into eighth grade was the hottest Arnold could remember. Some mornings he would just wake up irate. He couldn’t tell if the aggravation was born from uneven hormonal influxes, Helga’s absence or Helga’s existence. It was probably a dizzying combination of all three. 

He barely went to Gerald Field over that summer – Helga was eager to avoid him and finally, he was eager to avoid her too.

After that night at the pier, Arnold stormed home and his father worried after him. Once Arnold started ranting and pacing around his room, trying to summarize his history with Helga so that his father might understand why her words were so damaging, the man panicked and admitted, “I think your mother might be better suited for this, son.”

So, his mother was sent up to his room where she sat and told him to start from the beginning. And he paced, flung his arms around, pulled at his hair and talked his throat raw. She didn’t offer him too many words of wisdom that he couldn’t have supplied himself with, but she assured him that he was a kind boy and she knew he wasn’t an act. She told him how proud she was of him and that made his stomach twist up and his heart sink.

He felt sick for more reasons than one; he didn’t feel like a fraud the way Helga apparently thought of him, but perhaps he has had ulterior motives in the past. He’s tried his best to be altruistic, but maybe _no_ human can be completely giving and want for nothing. Instead of owning up to that, he snapped at her – she wasn’t totally right, but she wasn’t totally wrong either. More guilt ate away at him at that thought.

More than that, though, Helga had probably been just as angry as him, if not angrier, when she left the pier and he knew there was no one sitting in her bedroom with her, listening to her rant and telling her she was good enough or that anyone was proud of her. She probably went home, slammed her bedroom door and… well, did whatever it is Helga would do. Alone.

Arnold didn’t tell his mother what Brainy had confided in him – he didn’t tell anyone and it would seem that Gerald kept it to himself as well.

What was he supposed to do with that information, after all? Helga’s mother was notorious around Hillwood for her drinking problem – if Arnold said, “I’ve heard Big Bob’s picked up the bottle,” what difference might it have made?

It felt like he should, sometimes – like he should warn somebody, alert someone, but he wasn’t sure who to alert or really about what. Brainy’s concerns made for implications, but they weren’t evidence of anything other than that Helga’s family was gradually getting more dysfunctional.

So, Arnold kept it to himself.

Before their first day of eighth grade, Gerald sat him down and listed off the numerous favors Arnold owed him from childhood and when Arnold finally asked what it was all about, Gerald admitted that he liked Phoebe. _A lot_. He was a little too shy to make a move quite yet, but he wanted to sit with her at lunch, start building rapport or something.

Arnold had congratulated him, thinking that was wonderful and still not understanding what he had to do with it all. That is, until Gerald made it abundantly clear that Arnold would be coming with him to the table and whatever awkwardness was between him and Helga, he had to get over.

“If Phoebe’s best friend hates _me_ because she hates _you_ , it’ll ruin everything!” Gerald argued, “Just get Helga to tolerate you! If Helga gives us the stamp of approval, I’m in the clear, but the second she says she doesn’t like me because I’m attached to your hip, man, Phoebe won’t give me a second glance… please? Just help me out here?”

Never let it be said that Arnold didn’t make sacrifices for friends.

That first day back at school, walking into the lunch room and following behind Gerald had his heart palpitating. Brainy was sitting right between Helga and Phoebe and he was the first to notice Arnold and Gerald approaching. When he picked his head up, both girls mimicked him and while Helga looked immensely displeased and Brainy looked confused, bordering on frightened, Phoebe looked thrilled.

“Can we, uh, sit with you guys?” Gerald asked politely.

Phoebe glanced to Helga whose eyes were narrowed and keeping Arnold’s glare. She looked at Phoebe, then to Brainy and gave some roll of her eyes that somehow communicated her willingness to concede. Phoebe smiled as she gestured for them to sit and it was nice for Arnold to watch Phoebe and Gerald hit it off so well.

After so much animosity, it was nice to see love blossoming somewhere.

It did, however, leave him feeling like a very awkward fifth wheel and that feeling didn’t lessen over time. And, boy, did Gerald take his time.

Gerald was adamant that this snail’s pace with Phoebe was what he needed to do; they were both shy around each other, even though it was obvious they liked one another.

Arnold wouldn’t lie; he wished Gerald would pump the gas a little. Most days, sitting with them at lunch, Helga would be mumbling stuff to Brainy every now and again and if she ever made eye-contact with Arnold, it was by accident. She kept her face stoic and unreadable and tried her best not to engage him.

Despite her efforts, Arnold would find himself in completely arbitrary arguments with Helga sometimes – it was like she was a constant Devil’s Advocate and even conversation topics he’d see as totally benign, Helga would jump down his throat for.

As months wore, on, though, Helga did seem to learn to tolerate him. And he always cared about Helga, no matter how infuriating she was – her ribbon was still in his pocket everyday and on the days she quieted rather than acted out in anger, she felt just slightly closer, just slightly more… attainable.

There was this great chasm between them that had never been there before and Arnold wasn’t certain how to overcome it. He only knew he _wanted_ to overcome it.

“Play to your strengths,” his mother had told him.

He’d kept her updated on his socialization with Helga, how at a loss he was about what to do next or what to say or how to act. His mother told him to keep being his honest, generous self and even play it up – engage her when she’s trying to give him the cold shoulder, ask her if he can do anything for her when she seems angry – gentlemanly stuff.

Most of the time, those approaches didn’t work. Helga was angry and pretty intent on staying angry, it would seem. She just didn’t begrudge Phoebe her crush.

He was in front of her on the lunch line one day, the stiffness and general air of frustration around them too much of a constant to be perturbed by anymore. He put a small serving of strawberry shortcake on his tray and for the first time in months, she didn’t take an attitude with him when she spoke.

“You like that?”

Arnold looked to Helga in surprise, then down to the cake on his tray, then back to her.

“Strawberry shortcake? Yeah, it’s my favorite.”

Helga seemed intrigued.

“You’re favorite, huh? It’s really that good?”

“You’ve never had strawberry shortcake?” Arnold asked disbelievingly.

Without answering, Helga shrugged and Arnold saw an opening for an olive branch to be extended.

He played to his strengths.

He grabbed another serving of the shortcake and put it on Helga’s tray, silently declaring that she absolutely must try it. He smiled at her when they met eyes and he said, “you really shouldn’t know a life without strawberry shortcake.”

She didn’t reply, but she didn’t look angry either. He counted it as a victory.

As they made their way back to their designated lunch table, Brainy’s eyes fell on Helga’s tray and he elbowed Phoebe to get her attention. As Helga sat down between them and Arnold across from them, Phoebe looked at the tray, then to Helga who didn’t look her way.

“H-Helga! What are you doing?”

Arnold and Gerald traded confused glances then watched as Helga dug around in her backpack for something. Whatever it was, she slammed it onto the tabletop and said to Phoebe, “what does it look like I’m doing? I am eating some strawberry shortcake.”

“Helga –"

Always equipped with a grown man’s appetite, Helga inhaled her cake while her table watched; Arnold couldn’t understand what Brainy and Phoebe were so worried about. He was really just looking forward to seeing Helga enjoy his favorite dessert – which, with the way she downed it, was undeniable. He felt sorta proud of himself, that he’d shown her something she clearly liked.

When she was finished, she licked some whipped cream from the corner of her mouth, distracting Arnold briefly and then looked Arnold in the eye. He felt a shiver run down his back; the look in her eyes wasn’t that of an enemy, a bully or friend, exactly. Not a Goddess either. Just a person. A person he didn’t quite understand, but would like to.

“Helga…?” Phoebe asked worriedly.

It was at that moment, Arnold could see blotchy redness crawling up Helga’s neck.

She took a deep breath and uncapped what she’d slammed onto the table before – it was an EpiPen.

Eyes growing wide with the dawning of realization, Arnold watched helplessly as Helga clicked something on the pen and then drove it into her own thigh. Her whole body lurched forward with a groan of pain, her breaths were coming in shallow, hoarse and then she passed her cellphone to Phoebe, ordering simply, “call an ambulance.”

“Oh goodness!” Phoebe exclaimed, fumbling with the phone and telling Gerald to go get a teacher.

“ _You’re allergic_?” Arnold asked with a voice two registers higher than what was normal, his heart racing, “What – what do we do? Why didn’t you say so?”

“I love strawberries,” Helga answered simply, eyes a little glazed, “You were right. It was worth it.”

Somewhere halfway between overwhelming concern and absurdity, Arnold laughed. Helga laughed too and when she was carried out to an ambulance in the front of the school, Arnold found himself standing next to Brainy, still feeling ridiculous.

They watched someone put a breathing apparatus around Helga’s face, saw her give a ‘rock on,’ hand gesture and then the doors were shut and she was being whisked away.

The crowd that had formed around the excitement slowly dispersed until Gerald, Phoebe, Brainy and Arnold were standing by themselves.

“ _God_ ,” Brainy breathed out.

Arnold looked at the other boy and saw the shimmering in his grey eyes as he watched the truck depart.

“What?” Arnold asked.

Brainy shook his head, took a hit from his inhaler and said with such conviction, “she makes me feel… so _alive_.”

 _“Me too,”_ very nearly fell out of Arnold’s mouth without inspection, but he was able to stop himself. It was strange, though, how natural it was to think and say something like that – to think about how, even though she frustrated him and incited him all the time, she made him feel like he was _living_. Really living.

It couldn’t be denied – Helga was special. Always had been, always would be. She made him try harder, shout louder, say more, do more, dream more. She motivated him to be so much more than he usually thought himself capable of being. Just by being herself.

He’d have liked to thank her for that, somehow, but he doubted she’d take well to that. So he rubbed the ribbon in his pocket between his fingers instead.

When Phoebe understood it was Arnold that suggested Helga try the cake, she shouted at him – he didn’t take it personally. He could tell she was just worried about Helga. He was worried too, but she seemed too unshakeable and too confident for him to get upset about what happened. He apologized to Phoebe anyway and asked why no one stopped Helga if they knew she was allergic.

“I’m sorry, have _you_ ever tried to stop Helga Pataki from doing what she wants?” Phoebe asked sarcastically.

At that, Arnold had to laugh and Phoebe gradually laughed with him, cooling her jets.

When she calmed down enough to appraise him, she gave a sigh, fixed her glasses on her nose and said to him, “you know – she really does love strawberries that much. She’s only allergic because when she was really young, she ate them constantly. They were the only thing she’d eat. She said there was one day she had to go to a cousin’s wedding or something and there was a big tray with an enormous serving of strawberries. She ate the entire tray and within the hour, fainted. Ever since that day, she’s been allergic.”

“I didn’t know something like that could happen to a person,” Gerald mentioned.

Phoebe nodded and explained, “it’s not psychological. She was very young and just overloaded her body with one particular food and her body went into a type of shock from it, made antibodies to attack it and the allergy was just born – it happens to kids a lot. She hasn’t had anything that’s been even remotely _near_ a strawberry in years. What did you say to her that possessed her to do that?”

Everyone looked at Arnold and he blushed under their eyes, rubbed the back of his neck and answered, “I don’t know. I told her it was my favorite and she seemed hesitant – I didn’t think it was because she was _allergic_. I never would have suggested she try it if I’d known.”

“But you said it was… your favorite?”

Turning to look at Brainy, who had posed the question, Arnold nodded again and Brainy nodded back, smiling at his shoes.

“Yeah. That makes sense.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back????  
> yes!  
> I never abandon fics - I may take long hiatuses or long pauses between developments, but I try my best not to orphan fics.  
> I hope you guys enjoy the update and y'all can look forward to more updates in the near future. <3


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Mention/implications of child abuse and neglect

Like a champion of ancient, Biblical proportions, Helga was heralded as a hero to all when she returned to school. She was disproportionately proud of herself and the bloating of her ego was likely the last thing she needed, but Arnold couldn’t help but find it sort of charming. Helga always was charming, in her own blustery, loud way.

The kids were in awe of her, though – even the high schoolers had caught wind of the story and she was making a reputation for herself at the high school before she even got there.

“Local Preteen Risks Death for Cake,” is indisputably fascinating.

She had literally eaten the forbidden fruit, just to say she did and to prove she could and would, no matter the consequences. She had perfectly straddled the line between stupid and brave, one foot evenly planted on either side and everyone respected her for it.

Harold told her she was a ‘certified bad ass,’ to which she responded, ‘yeah, Pink Boy, tell me something I don’t know,’ Eugene told her he’d like to be her when he grew up and she said, ‘well, who am I to judge? Moses started out as a basket case too. You could go places yet, kiddo.’

Rhonda accused her of being a ‘self-congratulating show-off,’ loudly, in a full hallway and Arnold actually burst out laughing when Helga turned around to look Rhonda in the eye and calmly reply, ‘I’ve been called worse by better, sweet-cheeks, but thanks for playing anyway!’

Already irritated that her insult hadn’t landed, Rhonda was highly offended that Arnold had laughed, but when she glared at him, all he could do was laugh harder.

Something was different – the air was fresher or lighter, Helga seemed more like herself, less distant and more like she didn’t despise Arnold’s very existence.

Who knew cake could be so effective in repairing relationships?

She didn’t indicate that things were all good and well between them, but she wasn’t so venomous when she spoke to him anymore and she stopped sprouting daggers from her eyes every time they accidentally caught each other’s stare.

Well, _sometimes_ it was an accident.

Arnold often stared at her, hoping she’d feel it and look his way so he could get that .2 seconds of unguarded emotion.

It was always worth it.

Things got strained and a little bit bizarre again towards the end of October; Helga started wearing this ill-fitted sweater and wouldn’t take it off for anything, even when the radiators in class were on full blast and she must have been boiling.

It was starting to get cooler outside, but it was still too warm to be wearing a sweater so big and so thick and it was definitely too warm in the schools to be comfortable in it.

Phoebe had asked about it at the start of the trend, but Helga had brushed her off and Phoebe hadn’t pressed the issue; Brainy asked about it and Helga flicked him in the ear and told him to ‘bug off,’ and ‘mind his own.’ Gerald wasn’t about to stick his nose in her business and Arnold had asked, of course, but she’d just asked rhetorically, ‘whadda _you_ care?’

Frankly, Arnold cared a lot, but he knew she wouldn’t like hearing that. Another thing he never understood about her – she must have been the only person on Earth that didn’t like small reassurances like those. She seemed like the only person on Earth that didn’t want someone to pat her head and tell her everything was going to be okay or that of course she was cared after – he knows most people would want to hear ‘well, I actually care a lot,’ but not Helga G. Pataki.

No, sir.

Arnold knew that wasn’t the right answer and he didn’t pursue that dead end.

He worried, of course, but he kept it to himself. He’d offer to put it in his backpack sometimes, as a way of implying ‘you must be hot, I’ll take that off your shoulders for you,’ but she never took him up on those offers. Not that her rejection was in any way a surprise.

The fad would have disappeared from topical conversation over time, Arnold is sure, but then the Gym Incident happened – maybe eight or nine days before Halloween.

Harold, Gerald, Arnold, Phoebe, Rhonda, Lila, Sid and Helga all shared the same gym period – so they were all there to see it. And Rhonda, unable to retain a secret for more than fifteen minutes at a time, spread the details like wildfire like a live stream from her MySpace.

Never one to take orders, Helga had refused to take her sweater off as per school rule for dress code in gym class and, since the teacher couldn’t forcibly remove it, Helga began being threatened with detention. She still wouldn’t comply, so he threatened suspension. She got belligerent, so he threatened expulsion and when she still wouldn’t budge and kept undermining his authority, he called in Dr. Bliss.

Dr. Bliss worked part-time as a school counselor, but still ran her private practice. Arnold was pretty sure Helga still saw Dr. Bliss once or twice a week. He didn’t have anything to back that up, he just got the feeling she and Dr. Bliss were still in contact.

Arnold hadn’t gone to see her, though everyone who had gone to her office for help reported that she was very helpful and kind. He didn’t need any particular help with anything, though (or, at least that’s what he kept telling himself) – he didn’t know why he was hesitant to approach her.

Maybe because she was a goldmine of Helga Pataki related information – all of which she’d never disclose because Arnold understands basic ethics codes, but still – she’s this walking bank of invaluable information. He would probably leave more frustrated than relieved if he ever did visit her office for anything.

In any case, she arrived to mediate between the gym teacher and Helga and it started off normal, enough – ‘why are you acting out?’ ‘yes, that’s exactly what you’re doing,’ ‘what are you trying to prove, Helga?’

Something about Helga’s responses to those questions made Dr. Bliss uncomfortable and she started asking Helga _weird_ questions – something about how long she’d been wearing that sweater, had anyone seen her out of that sweater in the last two to three weeks, had she ever intentionally hurt herself before, if she had hurt herself before, had she done it recently…

When Helga tried storming out to avoid the interrogation, Dr. Bliss caught her by the collar and told her, “I’m sorry, Helga. As a psychologist, I’m a mandatory reporter. If I think you’re in any sort of danger, I need to find out what kind and get you out of it.”

“I’m not in danger!” Helga shouted, her face flushed.

Even Arnold didn’t believe her when she said it. He glanced between Phoebe and Gerald and they didn’t seem convinced either. That made him worry more.

Helga put up a physical fight, but seemed too fond of Dr. Bliss to put her all into it and though it was reluctant, she did sort of surrender.

When Dr. Bliss rolled up Helga’s sleeves, Phoebe grabbed both Arnold’s and Gerald’s hands with a gasp.

There were no cuts or burns.

But there were bruises.

Deep, dark, splotchy bruises that looked suspiciously like the general shape and size of Big Bob’s hands.

Arnold ripped his arm away from Phoebe just as Helga took hers away from Dr. Bliss. He ran over to her as the class burst into volume, rumors and hypotheses already bubbling to life and Helga began yelling at Dr. Bliss, “it’s not what it looks like! I swear! It was an accident! I knew everyone would blow this out of proportion! It’s not a big deal! It’s not what it looks like!”

“Helga!” Arnold exclaimed, coming to stand next to her and finally – _finally_ , after years of absolutely no contact between them, he touched her shoulder.

He _touched_ her.

He couldn’t fight the instinct, couldn’t have avoided reaching for her even if he’d tried – he _needed_ to touch her, he needed to verify that she was safe and so long as he was there, so long as she was near him, near enough to touch, she was safe.

He couldn’t rationalize that, but it felt right – he wouldn’t let anyone hurt her, like everyone else had clearly let happen. If he was close enough to touch her, he was close enough to block any other hands from coming so close to her again.

He held her shoulder in his grip and turned her toward him. He planted his other hand firmly on her opposite shoulder and his rage must have been showing on his face because he’d never seen Helga get so quiet so quickly.

“Helga,” he repeated, his face closer to hers, “did your dad do this?”

She rolled her eyes, but they were getting glassy and Arnold… he felt… he felt…

Carnal. Feral.

Lethal.

“Helga!” Arnold repeated, “Has he hurt you before? When did this happen? How did you –“

“Oh, for Pete’s sake!” Helga interrupted, her hands coming to rest on his upper-arms, “Relax! I told you, it’s not what it looks like! Big Bob’s a jerk, but he’s not that sort of jerk! It’s not what -”

“Miss Pataki.”

Everyone looked to see the principal, two school administrators and the school nurse standing there in the open gymnasium doors.

The nurse stepped closer and said, “Miss Pataki, I’m afraid it’s imperative that I see these bruises.”

“It’s not anyone’s business!” Helga shrieked – Arnold hadn’t noticed until then that she’d not left his hold, although she had every ability to.

He was surprised by that, but more than that, he was surprised by the way she leaned in closer to him and away from the nurse.

It was just a half-step more into the cage of his arms, just a fraction less space between them, but to Arnold, it was as good as having Helga leap into his grasp.

He knew they were trying to help – these were the Grown Ups. They were there to help and help in ways Arnold had no way of knowing to help, but he felt how uncomfortable she was, how angry and upset she was and he couldn’t help how high his defenses got.

He pulled her closer to him and he heard her breath catch a little, felt her fingers twitch a bit around his arms and his heart was pounding and his hands were clammy, but he was resolute. He was focused.

He glared at the nurse and said, “she doesn’t want to be touched. You heard her. You can’t just touch her like that – you can force her to do anything she doesn’t want to do.”

“Arnold,” Dr. Bliss began gently, “I know you want to help Helga, but ignoring this won’t help. We need to see the bruises and we need to know if… if anything else has happened.”

At that, Arnold looked to Helga, worry apparent in his eyes, searching hers for some confirmation or denial that things could possibly get worse. She didn’t meet his eyes, though – she stared at his collarbone and seemed away from herself.

He felt limbless. Unable to help.

He had all this Hellfire in him, ready to burst out at anyone that came close, but he knew the real enemy wasn’t there to protect her from.

It was too late to protect her.

_He_ was too late.

He had failed her.

Again.

Rumors were spread about the specifics of how it played out from there, but all that really happened once the nurse and administrators and principal were there, was a lot of shouting and Helga eventually needing to take her sweater completely off.

She stepped out of the circle of Arnold’s arms, but strangely enough, she didn’t move far – as if she wanted to stay just as close to him as he wanted her to stay.

Beneath it all, she was wearing a tight camisole and wire-bra; her figure was getting fuller and the sweater, Arnold supposed, had been hiding that. More than hiding that, though, it was concealing the length of bruising that went down Helga’s left side and back – the bruising was too extensive.

Any bruising was too extensive, but what was going down her entire side? The black and purple and green muddying up her peachy, pink skin? It was too much.

It was all too much.

The police were called and Arnold felt feverish.

Dr. Bliss couldn’t even get a hold of Miriam and Arnold could barely breathe.

CPS agents arrived and Arnold’s vision started swimming.

Everyone in the neighborhood made it into a spectacle and Arnold wanted to protect Helga from their peers, but he was much more concerned with protecting her from Big Bob.

He thought to himself that this was his fault – he knew Big Bob had been drinking. He had known for too long and said nothing.

He knew Helga was scared to go home most days and he knew Helga’s mother was of no help at all and he’d known that all too for too long.

He knew Big Bob was a threat and he’d done nothing and said nothing and now Helga was hurt.

He knew he’d have to take out the rush of aggression on someone or something, eventually, but he refused to do it while Helga was there. He swore to himself he’d never so much as raise his voice in front of her again, if he ever had.

He wouldn’t make her scared to be near him. He’d be a safe boy – man. He’d be a safe _man_ for her. A man she could trust. A man that would never harm her. One who would protect her the way she ought to have been protected. He’d make it so she never feared him – never.

The circus show moved out to the side of the school and bled into dismissal – some kids were telling police officers about times they’d seen Big Bob lose his temper, slam doors, bang his fists against walls, shout and intimidate Helga – it was all true, but it all seemed to dig a deeper grave not for Big Bob, but for Helga somehow.

When Arnold’s parents showed up to pick him up from school and they saw what was going on, Stella was driven immediately to Helga’s side and she charmed the officers into letting Helga come back to the boarding house until they were able to contact Miriam and establish some safety for Helga.

Neither Miles or Arnold would ever be entirely sure how she did it, but everyone abided – the scene needed to die down, it was practically hysterics all around and getting Helga somewhere quiet where the police, CPS or Dr. Bliss could eventually follow was sounding pretty ideal.

Gerald and Phoebe came along to the boarding house as well, though they trailed behind in a different car.

Phoebe was crying and gesticulating a lot at Gerald – Arnold could see it all from the rearview mirror in the Packard. Gerald seemed shell-shocked, but was trying his best to comfort Phoebe.

Arnold got the feeling he and Phoebe were both feeling similarly – like they’d failed Helga.

Like they’d do anything to make it right.

If the day hadn’t already taken a sharp left, once they all arrived at the boarding house, whatever was out of hand got further from reality somehow.

Susie and Grandma and Stella all insisted on making tea for some reason, as if it were the cure-all – Arnold had no idea Helga knew anything about tea or liked it at all, but she knew her way around some types, apparently.

“Do you have any, uhm… chamomile tea?” Helga asked politely, “I have a sensitive stomach and stress and, uhm, anxiety makes my stomach act up a lot.”

“Oh! I have some!” Susie chirped, eager to help, “Do you like sugar or cream, sweetie?”

“Some honey would be nice, if you’ve got it,” Helga replied, looking uncharacteristically shy and almost like she were shrinking.

This much attention must have been distressing and Arnold had the impulse to hide her away in his room. He said as much to his parents, but his mother muttered to him privately to let them handle the CPS agents and police and Dr. Bliss and hiding her would do no good.

He would still wring his wrists to keep from curling around Helga protectively and potentially hissing at anyone that got too close.

“You know, that’s very common, among young children of trauma – the upset stomach.”

Arnold turned his head toward his mother and pinched his brow in confused worry.

“What?”

She nodded and while Helga was still in the kitchen and out of earshot, Stella told him, “that’s how generalized anxiety disorders form. Young children are exposed to high-stress environments and their brains try to acclimate to the environment. They wind up making a whole lot of cortisol – that’s the fight-or-flight hormone. Stress and anxiety. When you’re little, you can’t really understand the danger, you can’t really conceptualize the neglect, so all there is to do is feel and all there is to feel is anxiety and fear and upset. In children that have been neglected or abused, it’s not uncommon for them to develop chronic stomach issues or sleep disturbances, like sleep-walking or night terrors and sometimes even enuresis.”

“Enuresis?” Arnold asked.

“Oh – big word,” Stella excused herself, backtracking, “Enuresis means loss of bladder control after mastery. Meaning, post-potty-training. Children who wet the bed past what might be considered an appropriate age. It’s a big indicator of abuse or neglect in children.”

Arnold’s neck started to feel hot – were there always so many signs that Helga was being abused?

He remembered that she used to sleepwalk and even sleepwalked to his house once. He wondered how many other ‘sleep disturbances,’ she may have suffered.

He and everyone that knew Helga since elementary school knew she had a sensitive stomach too – no one ever poked fun about it, because it seemed like a medical issue or chronic handicap, but they all knew about it.

The only thing she ever got mocked for, really, was when Olga had insensitively announced to _everyone and their mother_ that Helga had been a bed-wetter until she was… nine, was it? Something like that. Arnold couldn’t remember.

Kids laughed at the time. They had forgotten about it by now, certainly, but under a new light, it doesn’t seem like a silly delay in maturity anymore or some embarrassing peculiarity.

Now it seemed like a red flag that something was wrong.

Arnold thought to himself that he may have laughed that day – he couldn’t remember. He liked to think he wouldn’t, that he didn’t, but that day isn’t engrained in his memory and he’s just not sure.

He hoped he didn’t.

He remembered how Helga’s hands shook through her hair on the hill in San Lorenzo. He remembered how jumpy she always was, how nearly-paranoid she seemed during school. Always so on-edge and accusatory.

Was that the anxiety showing?

“What else?” Arnold asked, attention spun up in his mother’s medical knowledge, “What are other signs of stuff like that?”

Stella looked up and away, trying to recall information, “oh, there are always signs. The trouble is, really, that a lot of those signs can be written off as disabilities, delays or just quirks. But more symptoms are ill behaviors, bullying or just acting out, but also maintaining a deeply guarded sense of privacy. Non-disclosure of home-related issues, delinquency, introversion – lots of things.”

Arnold frowned at his feet and asked softly, “… does that mean… if people had been paying a little more attention, that maybe –"

“No, Arnold,” Stella stopped him, smiling sadly, “Don’t think that way. There was no way for anyone to know what was going on. People could have made guesses, but, unfortunately, for anything to get fixed, people often need proof that anything’s broken to begin with.”

“But why’d the broken thing have to be Helga?”

Stella’s frown deepened and she went to answer him, but then Helga was coming back into the room and Arnold stood to – he wasn’t sure…

Stand awkwardly in greeting?

She seemed just as wrong-footed as he felt, so he supposed he, at least, wasn’t alone in feeling bizarre and a little foolish.

Gerald and Phoebe joined them in the living room with most of the other boarders and the boarders, as a group, were gradually forming a riot, really – all plotting vengeance against Bob Pataki in conspiratorial whispers.

The phone kept ringing, Arnold’s grandmother kept answering it, there were knocks on the door being answered, but Helga was being kept safe in the living room with everyone else. The animals were all running amok – Abner nudged at Helga’s calves in a way of comforting her the way he often did with Arnold; Arnold wanted to tell Helga that Abner taking such a vested interest in her was special, but she seemed almost frightened of Abner.

He had to admit it was kind of cute. Similar to the way she was frightened of rats, but the fear was less aggressive. It was like she was nervous Abner might betray her and bite her or something. She held onto her mug of tea with both hands and watched Abner settle at her feet with suspicion.

Arnold wanted to smile, but he just… couldn’t. Not on this day.

The living room was loud with overlapping conversations, angry speculations and apparent disgust for Bob Pataki. Mr. Potts was already brewing something violent to enact and trying to recruit Oskar when, suddenly, Mr. Hyunh’s voice broke through all the noise.

“ _What_ is going on down here?”

His daughter was visiting, apparently, and standing beside him.

She poked her head into the room and to Arnold’s alarm and confusion, Mai pointed at Helga, eyes wide and smile spreading and she exclaimed excitedly, “that’s her! Dad, the one I have told you about! The little girl that brought me here Christmas Eve!”

Arnold’s heart very nearly stopped beating.

He could feel Gerald’s eyes on him, but his eyes moved onto Helga.

She was ashen and looking like a deer in headlights – like she might even faint.

_There’s no way…_

“Little girl!” Mai began, approaching Helga, “I am so glad to see you again! I wanted to thank you that night, but when I went outside again, you were gone and I did not know how to find you!”

Without prompting, Mai hugged Helga and Arnold’s neck and face grew hotter by the second.

Stella politely took Helga’s cup of tea from her hands to let Mai hug her properly, but Helga looked ill-equipped to hug back. As if Helga were unused to hugs and didn’t know how to reciprocate them.

“Oh, she walked all the way here with no shoes on in the snow that night,” Mai began, looking back at Mr. Hyunh who was still standing in the threshold of the room, “It was the strangest sight! When she knocked on my apartment door, she was alone, standing there with wet socks and snow in her hair and she asked me all of this background information. She was trying to make sure I was truly your daughter – I had no idea what to think of it, so I answered honestly. Once she felt sure, she grabbed my hand and told me it was very important that I follow her – that if I did not arrive at the Sunset Arms, someone she cared deeply for would never believe in miracles again.”

Mai smiled at Helga, her arms cupping Helga’s shoulders, “you said to me that you had spent all night trying to find me and that we had to hurry because time was running out. I remember how you slid around on those socks – I was worried you would get sick or fall on the ice, but you ran so quickly! When I realized you had brought me to my father, I wanted so much to thank you. You were gone, though, and I have not seen you again since then. I must thank you now.”

“I, uhm –“

“What is your name?”

“… uhm… Helga,” she answered nervously, still looking white as a sheet.

Mai, teary-eyed, hugged her again and professed, “thank you – thank you, Helga. You may not have done what you did for my sake, but you gave back to me a piece of myself I never realized was missing, that night. I will never be able to thank you enough. Perhaps I will buy you shoes for the next time you go running in the snow.”

The room was spinning, Arnold’s blood felt like it was running backwards or swirling around in whirlpools.

_Socks? She said Helga was wearing wet socks… why would Helga not have been wearing shoes?_

Arnold’s throat started closing up.

_Nancy Spumoni boots!_ Arnold realized with a hot sensation in his stomach and a hard pulsation in his chest, _Helga must have had the last pair **in town** – her father probably bought her those shoes – they had to have been so expensive... and she gave them away. She found Mai for me… **she** was my Christmas Angel…_

“Helga is here because she can’t go home,” Phoebe announced, garnering everyone’s attention but Arnold’s.

“What do you mean?” Mai asked Phoebe.

“The school administrators found out today that Helga was physically harmed by her father. I don’t think she’ll be allowed to return home for a time – her sister is abroad and Helga may be put into foster care if there’s no suitable home for her to stay at –“

“No!” Mai objected, looking at Helga, “You do not leave this house! My father and I will make sure you are kept safe!”

Mai looked at Mr. Hyunh in the threshold and assured, “we won’t let her, dad. Not after all she’s done for us.”

Mr. Hyunh slowly came into the room, crouching for Helga; “you are the little girl, really? The one that brought my daughter to me – as a gift to Arnold?”

Growing somehow paler, Helga nodded stiltedly and then, with as much warning as Ma had given, Mr. Hyunh was hugging her tightly. He cupped the back of her head with a broad hand, shutting his eyes.

He looked pained.

“Fathers are meant to protect and love their daughters, no matter the cost. Never harm. I am so sorry you have been hurt by the one meant to protect you. I will protect you, little girl. You can stay here with me. None of us will let you be hurt again.”

All of the boarders joined in like a choir, reaffirming what Mr. Hyunh had said, telling Helga she was welcome to stay however long, that they would give her all she needed or wanted, that she could trust them and with little else to do, Helga tucked her face into the crook of Mr. Hyunh’s neck and Arnold couldn’t see her crying, but he could hear it when he heard her say over and over, “thank you. Thank you, so much.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another update! That's right! School is kicking my ass, but I'm here!   
> Yes, Arnold will talk to Helga about her being his Christmas Angel and Helga /will/ explain what happened with Big Bob, how she got hurt and does all this mean that Helga will be staying at the boarding house for a time?   
> YES, YES IT DOES  
> ROMANTIC AND PRE-TEEN SEXUAL TENSION, HERE WE COME!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: Abuse mention, alcohol use mention and sexual tension between underage characters

After giving up on calling the Pataki household, CPS made a home visit and found Helga’s mother less than decent and so intoxicated, she was sent to the hospital out of genuine concern for her well-being. With Big Bob in the slammer for the time being and Miriam indisposed, Olga was their last of kin to contact.

With great difficulty, Olga was contacted and given the full details of what CPS and the local police could gather, but she was not in an easy location for transport back to the states and, even with valiant efforts, she didn’t expect to arrive for at least another week.

She also made mention that just ‘up-and-leaving at a moment’s notice wasn’t a considerate option,’ because ‘her students ‘needed her.’’

Arnold noticed the way Helga’s jaw clenched when she overheard that. Abner did too, apparently, because he made pitying snorts at Helga’s calves and kept nearly tripping her in his effort to stay by her feet.

With no blood relatives ready, able and willing to care after her, Mr. Hyunh committed quickly to taking Helga in and with everyone vouching for his character and, really, with nowhere else to take her, Helga was surrendered to the Sunset Arms for an indefinite period.

It took hours for everyone to clear out; it wasn’t until around nine in the evening that all the authorities left – and it was even later into the night by the time Gerald and Phoebe felt okay enough to leave.

Phoebe was talking with Helga and Mai while Gerald had pulled Arnold aside to ask him about Mai and Christmas all those years ago – he was freaking out, and fair, so was Arnold. Same as Gerald, Arnold had his own set of questions, but didn’t want Helga to overhear them, so he just told Gerald they’d talk about it later.

He tried explaining to Gerald that Helga really didn’t like getting credit for doing nice things, that being the reason they couldn’t talk about it openly yet, and while Gerald was confused about that, he agreed to let the matter go for right then.

After a six-minute hug from Phoebe, Helga was finally released to Mai, Mr. Hyunh and all the rest of the boarders.

Arnold got himself some hot chocolate and eavesdropped a little on his parents discussing whether or not to let ‘the kids,’ go back to school the next day – to perhaps, let them stay home for a day to recuperate from the melodrama.

Personally, Arnold thought that sounded good and fair. Helga needed it. He felt sure of it. She needed some privacy, to get a feel for the Sunset Arms, to decompress from all that had happened that day.

Rather than reveal that he’d been eavesdropping, Arnold left the kitchen and returned to the common area where Mr. Hyunh and Mai were sitting on the couch with Helga.

“And I let her go,” Mr. Hyunh was telling a rapt Helga, “I released her to that American soldier, not knowing if I would ever see her again. It was all I could do to save her. I am a father and that means my life is not my own anymore. I did what I had to, to ensure her safety. I will do everything I can to ensure your safety too, Helga. I hope you can come to trust me on this matter.”

Helga was looking pale and exhausted, unused to such intense kindness and to see her flounder in the face of it was actually a little endearing to Arnold.

Her Big Bully persona made her seem unshakeable, and Arnold thought it was just a little funny that a sizeable rat, public humiliation of any form, possibly Abner and _kindness_ were the things that could instill terror in the heart of Helga Pataki.

“Arnold.”

At being called, Arnold turned to face Phoebe and noted the pink tint around her eyes and her very grim expression. She had cried a lot all day and while she had calmed down a lot, he figured her sad eyes would carry into months to come. His own false sense of security had certainly been dismantled – he could hardly imagine what Phoebe felt in the face of all this.

At how seriously she was staring at him, though, he was nervous, but he wasn’t sure about what yet. He simply inclined his head to encourage her to speak her mind and she certainly didn’t hesitate.

“Junot Díaz wrote _This is How You Lose Her_ and there is a passage from it I want you to meditate on,” Phoebe explained.

Not knowing what else to do, Arnold nodded in agreement and Phoebe dug in her backpack, finding something and then handed him a looseleaf paper, written upon it:

_“You must learn her._

_You must know the reason why she is silent. You must trace her weakest spots. You must write to her. You must remind her that you are there. You must know how long it takes for her to give up. You must be there to hold her when she is about to._

_You must love her because many have tried and failed. And she wants to know that she is worthy to be loved, that she is worthy to be kept._

_And, this is how you keep her.”_

“Arnold,” Phoebe said again.

He looked up at her from the paper and she slanted her eyes at him, a strange expression playing over her face. Not for the first time, Arnold wondered what violent end he might meet if he ever wronged Helga and incited Phoebe’s wrath.

“Helga is quiet a lot,” Phoebe began, “She likes silence. She likes being alone, but not lonely. Do you understand?”

He wasn’t sure he did, but he nodded anyway.

Phoebe nodded back and continued, “she writes non-stop to show what she cares about – if you read her writing, you’ll know what she thinks most about, what she cares most about. Like a photographer and their favorite subject – it’s the same with artists all around. Look at their muse and you’ll generally find what’s running through their heads the most.”

Arnold blushed because he _has_ read her writing before and it was all about _him_.

“She won’t forget someone’s with her, _physically_ , but she can get lost in herself. She can forget that people care, that people are watching over her and she really does need reminding. Brainy is good at that – reminding her that she’s not alone and reassuring her. I’m not as good at that as he is, but I don’t know that anyone is.”

Objections to that already building, Arnold opened his mouth, but Phoebe doesn’t give him an opportunity to voice anything.

“She doesn’t have a lot of weaknesses,” Phoebe went on to say, “but the ones she does have are these big, blistering, bleeding ones that are so tender and painful, she just falls apart at the slightest touch of it. She doesn’t give up easy – you know that. You know how stubborn she is and the stubbornness can take her far, her pride can serve her well, but you and I both know she soars to her greatest heights when she cares. When she cares, she doesn’t give up, even if she pretends she has. Even when she tries to convince herself she has.”

Wistfully, Phoebe looked over to Helga and Arnold followed her stare, thinking on how tired Helga seemed and silently deciding to insist to his parents that they stay back from school the next day.

“She’s really confused by Brainy.”

Arnold quirked a brow at that and Phoebe explained, “he loves her totally unconditionally and whenever he hears about what happened today, she’s going to downplay it even more because she doesn’t understand why people love her or that they love her at all and she can hardly look him in the eye when he says how much he cares about her.”

Just imagining Helga being bashful or sweet or embarrassed or vulnerable to anyone else makes Arnold’s blood boil. An undeniable jealousy rose up in Arnold’s chest at that – he hated himself for it, hated himself for kind-of-hating Brainy, briefly, but Phoebe didn’t let him linger on the thought.

“The truth is, no one is ‘worthy,’ or ‘unworthy,’ of love. Love isn’t about deserving it. Love is unconditional and it’s kind and forgiving and endless. It’s never about deserving. People can’t help who they love, when they love, how they love – she doesn’t know that, though. She thinks she doesn’t deserve it, she thinks it’s a thing she has to earn, that she has to sacrifice herself for. And that makes her act weird ways – sometimes she’s so desperate to feel deserving of love, she’ll fall on whatever sword is closest, she’ll sacrifice whatever she has to spare, she’ll – she’ll do things, things like help you save Mighty Pete despite her father’s wishes, things like get funding for your parade float or return your hat to you – like make sure your Christmas miracle comes true.”

Arnold blushed and looked to Phoebe again, wondering how much Phoebe knew about all that.

Did Helga talk to Phoebe about all those things?

Did Helga admit she didn’t care a lick about the tree, but cared too much about Arnold to let anything happen to it?

Did she get Phoebe’s help in exploiting her father to get money for Arnold’s float all those years ago?

And his hat – now that he knew the depths of Helga’s feelings – or, at least what they used to be, especially at that time – giving him his hat back must have been like asking her to cut off a limb.

He hasn’t let go of her ribbon, after all.

He’d had every chance to return it, but safely in his pocket was it still tucked away and he had no intention of giving it back. He couldn’t be parted with it. He just couldn’t.

She must have felt that attachment to his hat ten-fold – or a hundred-fold, but she still returned his hat to him.

She had been brave enough to stay away and to give back to him his own symbol of hope.

He had his parents back, so he didn’t wear his hat anymore, really. His hopes had been realized.

Helga still wore her ribbons, though.

He couldn’t tell what she felt about him – she was impossible to read nowadays, but it was always a symbol. It was always a reminder, that someone noticed her.

That she wasn’t just a shadow on a wall.

That someone thought she was pretty, that she was worth noticing.

It was a monument to him and he’d stared at it every day of their childhood, never knowing what it was, what it _meant_ and there she had been – brave and selfless enough to give him back his hat when, at the time, she probably had little else to hope for from him.

As it stood, he considered her his friend (though he couldn’t be entirely positive she felt the same about him) and he’d do just about anything for Helga.

If her ribbons are anything like his hat, though, then he doesn’t know that he’s a fraction as courageous or empathetic as she was when she found his hat for him.

Phoebe looked back at him, breaking his reverie and added, “and sometimes she’s so wrapped up in her self-loathing, she feels _so_ undeserving that she’ll punish herself. She’ll isolate herself, she’ll shout and punch and kick and create these big rifts from nothing, _for_ nothing. She’ll make people hate her if they can’t love her and, more often than not, Arnold, she believes no one _can_ love her for who she is. So, she hopes they hate her instead. She _makes_ them hate her. She’s so sweet, though, if anyone just gave her a chance...”

Shaking her head, Phoebe trailed off for a moment, then smiled and asked him, “you know, when I won that evening with Ronnie Matthews, she came along?”

His eyebrows shot up, because no – he didn’t know that and he couldn’t imagine why Helga Pataki would ever entertain a night with Ronnie Matthews.

Phoebe smiled more broadly, telling him, “she came along and we found out that this whole time he’d just been a big, talentless chump who lip-syncs and takes credit for other people’s hard work and I think she was in awe of him, how he crafted this fake persona that everyone loved blindly and she wanted to be like him. She wanted to be false like him – she thought the con was brilliant. Right up until she saw how heartbroken I was over it.”

Arnold tilted his head with curiosity and Phoebe shrugged, telling him, “this bubble of perfection was popped for me and she just – she cared more about me being able to laugh again than her own hopeful apprenticeship to him and his ways. And I know she’d trash infinite plans for success and recognition for me – she’s thrown contests for me, fought my battles for me, done everything and anything for me, even if it meant she’d go unrewarded or it meant she wouldn’t get the most ideal outcome for herself – she put my happiness above her own. And she does that because she loves me and I love her and we both know that. We don’t say it, but she’s bad at hiding that kind of thing.”

Arnold thought he would beg to differ, but he decided not to comment.

“Just… the world is terrible, Arnold,” Phoebe sighed, “Everyone judges so quickly and she’s not soft and she’s not quiet and she’s not demure, but she’s herself. She’s Helga. She’s Helga G. Pataki and she doesn’t know that being Helga Pataki is the most amazing thing she could ever be. She inspires me, Arnold. She is unapologetically herself. That’s a rare kind of bravery, don’t you think?”

“Yeah,” Arnold agreed readily, moving his eyes back onto Helga – she felt his stare after a moment and met his gaze, seeming confused by it; Arnold tacked on, “yeah. It is.”

Helga had always been brash and secretive and blustery and competitive – intelligent and graceful and aggressive and frightening and honest and a billion conflicting things all at once. That used to terrify him, but he wasn’t so sure anymore that it was terror – maybe he’d mistaken awe and reverence and due respect for fear. She was such a multitude of impossibilities – Phoebe was right.

Helga was honest. Not in the things she _said_ , necessarily – but in _who_ she was. She was Helga G. Pataki and, as far as Arnold could tell, she wouldn’t trade places with anyone for anything.

She was Helga G. Pataki and her fists were a death sentence and she had pretty ankles (whatever that meant) and a boisterous laugh and eyes bluer than blue can be. She was Helga G. Pataki and she’d get mad _and_ even. She was Helga G. Pataki and she’d use her silk ribbons like tourniquets, she was a whole lot of bite with some sweet and she was ferocity and claws and fangs all dressed in white.

She was so much and she was so – so _infinite_.

Why _would_ she want to be anyone else?

“She got sad about Lila a lot.”

Arnold’s head whipped back to Phoebe and Phoebe crossed her arms over her chest, looking up at Arnold sort of expectantly, “she dressed up like Lila and imitated Lila for an entire Halloween for just a couple hours of your undivided attention, we don’t have to pretend like you don’t know.”

He blushed, but said nothing.

“She spent that entire night trying her hardest to be what she thought you wanted and you know what she said to me afterward?”

Scared to hear the end of that thought, Arnold hesitated. He felt like a jerk for a while after that night, after mistaking Helga for anyone other than who she was. Actually, he _still_ felt like a jerk, looking back on that night.

“She told me that you’d said she was ‘alright,’” Phoebe said with a laugh, “She said it like you’d told her she hung the moon, like you’d told her she was the sun, rising in the east. It was a compliment of epic proportions to her. And I asked her if she’d keep acting like Lila, then, to keep your attention and that’s when she said it – she said to me, ‘Phoebe, I would rather chew on live wasps than do any of that ever again.’”

It appeared that Phoebe couldn’t keep from laughing at that memory and her giggle was contagious – Arnold caught it and started laughing too.

Helga was hyperbolic at times, Arnold thought.

That was unapologetically Helga in its own right as well.

Once Phoebe was able to catch her breath again, she told him, “that’s all I’ve got to say for now, Arnold. I love Helga. She’s my sister. I know her too – better than most people think she _can_ be known – and I saw the way she stepped toward you today.”

Arnold was glad Phoebe had said something about it and he let her know, “I’m… actually really glad to hear that. I thought I’d just imagined it. It’s been so long since she let me in her personal space, it was just… it was intense, for me.”

“I can imagine,” Phoebe offered, “She doesn’t do that, though. When she gets scared, she doesn’t reach out for help like she should – she bares her teeth and snaps and hides. But she looked to you, Arnold.”

Heart skipping a beat, Arnold stared down at Phoebe as she stared intently back.

“She was scared and wanted to feel safe and instead of moving toward me or Dr. Bliss, she stepped closer to _you_. She chose you to protect her.”

Arnold gave pause, worrying at his lip with his teeth, nervous.

“Don’t let her regret it,” Phoebe warned, “She stepped into your arms, Arnold. She asked to be kept.”

Pointing at the piece of paper she’d handed him, Phoebe finished, “so learn to keep her, Arnold.”

There was nothing to do in response but nod – the heavy threat going unspoken weighed tons and it was probably written all over his face. Phoebe seemed pleased with the interaction and left shortly after.

Helga asked for a shower at around eleven and Mai showed her upstairs, grabbing some clothes she kept in her father’s room for Helga to borrow and a towel. They were still ascending when Arnold impulsively ran up to Mr. Hyunh and asked for permission to stay with Helga the night.

“It’s just – today was – I’ve been – I just wanna look after her – I don’t wanna be separated tonight. I know she’s under your care right now, Mr. Hyunh, but you know I’d never hurt her. I just… I’d like to be nearby, so… would it be okay if she stayed in my room tonight?”

Mr. Hyunh smiled at him and called up to Mai and Helga at the top of the stairs, “Helga – when you are out of the shower, Arnold will take you to his room. Stay with your friend tonight. It will help.”

Any protest Helga might have made died instantly. She looked to Arnold for some sort of explanation, or maybe even for him to argue against it, but Arnold just blushed deeply and shrugged.

“Uhm… okay,” Helga agreed cautiously, “I’ll, uh… I’ll be quick. See you in the morning?”

“Yes, you will,” Mr. Hyunh assured her, “I would like you to spend the day at home, here. I have work, but I will be here in the morning and evening.”

Helga nodded again and then Mai directed her toward the bathroom in the main hall. When Mr. Hyunh looked at Arnold again, he grinned and said, “I missed these years with my own daughter, you know, Arnold. If Helga were my own daughter, though, I would trust you with her. You’re a good boy, Arnold.”

He patted Arnold’s head, ruffling his hair and with that, stood and left.

“Alone with Helga for the night?”

Arnold jumped at the sound of his father’s voice and twisted around to see both his parents smirking down at him.

“You sure that’s wise, son?”

Blushing even more deeply, Arnold pouted at them and insisted, “it’s nothing – _weird_! I’m not being – it’s – I just don’t wanna be away from her right now, alright? Is that okay?”

His mother smiled kindly at him and told him, “yes, Arnold. It’s fine. In fact, your father and I think you and Helga should stay back from school tomorrow. It’s been a late night for you both and I think it’s been a heavy day for her. I don’t like the idea of her being holed up alone in your room or Mr. Hyunh’s room all day, though. You should stay with her tomorrow.”

“Thanks,” Arnold smiled, blood pressure evening out for the first time all day.

“And engage her, Arnold,” Stella advised, “Ask her about her interests – about herself. It will keep her mind off everything else. She needs a distraction.”

That might be the simplest and most appealing task anyone had given him in months. He nodded dutifully and hugged them both before going up to his room.

He passed the bathroom on the way there and listened to the shower water running. His steps slowed of their own volition and he paused, lingering by the door. He could hear the way the water pressure changed when she moved and he could sort of imagine it – the way her body would shift, how her feet might pivot, how her long legs and pink skin – but he stopped himself there.

He’d been far too liberal with his daydreaming as of late and Helga was already the recurring star of his less-than-welcome dream-conquests.

He shook his head and went up to his room to change into pajamas. He pulled out the sofa and decided he’d take it that night. He wanted Helga to be comfortable and he was more than willing to give her his bed. He actually remembered his daydream from long ago – the one where he’d offer her his skylight, so she’d not have to be scared of the dark.

He still wasn’t sure Helga _was_ scared of the dark, but if she was, then she’d be in for a treat in his room.

He looked forward to it.

Once he was changed, he went back down the steps just in time for Helga to exit the bathroom.

She looked dangerously beautiful. Not too unlike how she looked when they’d survived their trip down San Lorenzo’s waterfall together, but it never felt dangerous before. It never felt charged like that before – but he supposed they just… weren’t _kids_ anymore. Not quite adults yet, but definitely not children anymore.

Her skin was flushed from the steamy water, her lashes were darker, clumped together like feathers from the shower water still clinging to her and in the dim lighting of the Sunset Arms at night, she almost seemed to glow.

Her body was different – he couldn’t think clearly about it. She was growing and maturing and shaping. Her waist was getting narrower while her hips and chest widened – Olga had always had a sort of vase-shape to her body, as Arnold recalled, but Helga was developing an hourglass figure.

He wondered how dramatic those curves would become and he also wondered, with some measure of dread, how distracting they would be.

She was in very low-hanging pajama pants that had some sort of Eastern design on them with elephants; they were too big on her and clearly belonged to Mai. Her hair was down and wet, wavy too – the way Cecile’s looked – the way it looked in the jungle when she’d let it down.

He stared a little too long at the droplets of water still coming off her tresses, stared too long at her jaw and neck and the glimmer of a gold chain there. She was holding up a towel, wrapped around her top and concealing the object on the chain.

“Uhm,” Arnold started dumbly.

“Mai’s top was too big,” Helga cut in, getting a little pink in the cheeks, “I figured you’d have something smaller. She gave me a v-neck sorta thing and it’s definitely too big. You’d have gotten eyeful you really don’t want.”

_Oh, God, but I **do** want it._

Arnold curled his nails painfully into the heart of one of his palms to stop that train of thought.

“Uhm, yeah – I’ve got small, uhm – smaller shirts. Shirts you could borrow. Yeah, uh – you wanna follow me to my room?”

“Sure,” she told him nonchalantly.

He guided her up to his room and shutting the door as he did every night felt suddenly, eerily final.

They were a special kind of ‘alone.’

He was weirdly nervous, but excited at the same time and he couldn’t even tell what for.

He dug around one of his drawers for a shirt small enough for her to wear and while he pulled one out with a sound of triumph, he caught a glimpse of her pink book, still propped up on his bookshelf. His stare lasted long enough that he felt Helga look at it too.

There wasn’t much reason for either of them to pretend they didn’t know it was hers, so he didn’t hesitate to start taking his mother’s advice – he asked her about herself.

“Uhm… so, can I ask you something?”

“You already did,” Helga replied drily, still staring up at the book, “but depending on what else you ask, I might answer.”

“Okay, well… why poetry?”

She cocked her head to the side, some locks of hair slipping over her shoulder, “like, why do I write it or why do I like it or why do I read it or what?”

“All the above, I guess?”

Helga looked up and away, as if the answer were floating above her head, “I dunno. There’s a lot to it. It’s raw and it can be dark and romantic or sad, it can be deep or funny or sexy – I like how many forms it can take. It’s versatile.”

Arnold’s brain had halted at a specific word in there and he was stuck on it, so he asked hesitantly, “…sexy?”

She smirked at him like she had an ace up her sleeve (which she normally did, so that wasn’t such a surprise) and challenged, “what? You think all poetry is haikus and Shakespearean odes and old-timey limericks?”

“I dunno,” Arnold admitted, blush returning with vigor, “I definitely never thought of it as _sexy_ , though.”

She huffed a laugh that definitely meant she had perceived his doubt as a challenge and she muttered, “try this one on for size, then, Shortman,” before stepping up to him.

She was close – close as she had been in the gymnasium – closer, even. He could feel her everywhere – the very air of her moved over his skin and made his hands itch to reach out and touch.

He remembered her being soft and warmer than anything – softer and warmer than anything had any right to be. He could remember kissing her and the glazed look in her eyes when he’d pulled away and he’d thought she was so pretty, so warm, so soft – he wondered if that had changed too.

Gradually, her eyes went lidded and she moved just slightly so he was able to smell her; she smelled floral and sweet and she was radiating warmth, still hot from her shower.

It was a shock to the system, to have none of Helga for so long and then have so much of her all at once, so close to him, invading all his senses. It made him sort of dizzy, actually.

Would she welcome his touch again? Was he allowed to do that again? Would she turn from him or flinch away like she had when they were younger? Would she find some way to break his heart without trying? Or would she move in closer and closer – closer than was friendly or normal for her? Closer, the way he wanted her to be.

“It will stop your _breath_ , how _cruel_ I can be.”

Moving his head, he looked to her and her eyes were focused on his – they were so _blue_. So _beautiful_ , twinkling like sapphires and he was lost in them instantly. He felt pinned by them, but he didn’t mind it. He didn’t mind it at all.

She smiled sort of sadly and quietly told him, “but you understand, don’t you? You are clever enough.”

She tilted her head, taking another step closer, finally close enough that he could see her jugular bouncing against her flustered skin and he could feel her minty breath on his cheek. The muscles in his abdomen clenched with anticipation and while he was sort of petrified, he didn’t want her to stop.

Her eyes roved along the side of his face when she recited, “I _am_ a _demanding_ creature. I am _selfish_ and _cruel_ and _extremely_ unreasonable...”

He tried to make eye-contact again, but she wouldn’t let him. She only tucked her face closer, tilted more away, but he could feel her eyes on him. He could feel how her eyes moved down his jawline, over his cheek and down to his lips.

His mouth went hot and dry under the attention.

Her mouth seemed unaffected, however – while his voice was lost to the world, _her_ voice was velvet. Deep with sleepiness, a little raspy from overuse during the day, but perfect. So perfect. Fresh and promising and dark and sweet and incredible.

“But I... am your servant,” she murmured to him, sending chills down his neck and back, “When you starve I will _feed_ you; when you are sick I will _tend_ you.”

He gasped at the feel of her hand touching his waist, just under his shirt at the waistband of his sweatpants – his eyes went wide and his heart thudded against his ribcage like it was trying to break out.

He still didn’t know if he could touch her or not, but she was certainly allowed to touch him.

He wanted her to.

He could hardly breathe.

“I _crawl_ at your feet; for before _your_ love,” – Arnold swallowed roughly – “your _kisses_ ,” – his throat clicked audibly – “I am debased.”

Her fingertips left burning trails down his hip as her hand slipped away and she whispered close to his burning ear, “for you alone... I will be _weak_.”

There were a few seconds of tense silence and then she told him, “Deathless, by Catherine M. Valente.”

He struggled to look at Helga, but when he did, her eyes were expectant, waiting.

“Well?”

“Point taken,” Arnold managed to reply.

She smirked, devious as ever, and took the t-shirt from his hands, turning away and walking closer toward his couch.

It didn’t occur to him right away that he wasn’t supposed to stare, but thankfully, Helga didn't appear to notice by the time his senses came back to him and he looked away. 

Colors shifted in his periphery and he was able to tell when it was safe to look again and he was compelled to. He saw that her towel was discarded on his sofa and she was only just pulling the shirt down over her chest - he saw the dark bruises on her side and back and felt it necessary to ask.

"Helga... what happened?"

He hadn't meant for it to come out so sadly and quietly, for the anger that had been simmering under his skin all day to vanish into a smoke of uncertainty. Staying angry seemed easier, but Arnold's concern for her overran any ability to stay mad.

She turned to stare at him with a small degree of surprise, shirt half-pulled down and she kept it that way.

She glanced down at the bruises and sighed deeply, telling him, "it's not what everyone is making it out to be. Bob was drunk and ornery, looking for a fight that I wouldn't give him and I tried to walk out. I was going to leave the house and maybe try to stay at Brainy's or Phoebe's for the night, but then he got all crazy about it, yelling, like, 'you don't walk away from _me_ , young lady,' and grabbed my arm too hard and pulled on me too hard, too fast. I was in the threshold of the living room, so my side hit the wall when he twisted me back and as soon as I shouted, he let go. He didn't mean to hurt me. He was just drunk and doesn't know his own strength."

Arnold could imagine it.

Bob drunk, disoriented and angry at no one and for nothing - yelling at Helga. He could see Helga trying to walk away, trying to disengage (because, as he had learned in recent years, she was actually pretty good at that) and he could hear Big Bob's demanding voice, degrading her, calling her 'young lady,' and making it sound like 'stupid brat,' the way he always could. Arnold could even see how strong Bob's grip would've had to be to leave the marks he did and the idea of Helga _shouting_ \- shouting in _pain_ , no less - that was harder to imagine. Not because he couldn't conceive of it, but because it was so painful to consider.

"That's not a justification, Helga, that's just an explanation. They're not the same things," Arnold insisted, "Your dad shouldn't have been drunk in the first place and he never should have laid his hands on you. It's not okay."

She rolled her eyes at him, pulling the shirt down, "yeah, I know that. I'm just answering your question. You wanted to know what happened - that's _all_ that happened. Seriously. He wanted to fight someone and Miriam was passed out in another room, he'd never harass Olga, even if she were there to harass and I was the only conscious, potential target left. I didn't feel like arguing with him and tried to leave, he wouldn't let me, he grabbed me, tugged too hard and now we're here."

Here.

In the Sunset Arms.

In his bedroom.

He and Helga stared at one another, unsure of what that all meant.

They were alone - a special kind of alone. Arnold was ready to kill for her and she looked small and sensual and a billion other things that shouldn't make sense together. But they did. When it was Helga Pataki, anything was possible.

**Author's Note:**

> The quote Brainy uses is by Nathan Filer, in The Shock of the Fall


End file.
